Apollo's Brain

Financial Incentive for Marriage/Divorce Demanded by Oklahoma Bill

2012-01-29T11:01:00.001-06:00

STATE OF OKLAHOMA

2nd Session of the 53rdLegislature (2012)

HOUSE BILL 2540 By: McCullough

AS INTRODUCED

An Act relating to marriage and family;amending 28 O.S. 2011, Section 31, which relates to court clerk fees; modifyingrequirements for certain marriage applications and licenses; amending 43 O.S.2011, Sections 5, 5.1 and 6, which relate to marriage; requiring two hours ofpremarital counseling prior to any marriage; requiring certificate ofpremarital counseling completion; providing for fee reduction for completion ofeight hours of premarital counseling; requiring certain counseling certificate;providing contents and attachments of marriage licenses; amending 43 O.S. 2011,Section 107.2, which relates to court authority to require certain educationalprograms; making certain educational programs mandatory; and providing aneffective date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THESTATE OF OKLAHOMA:

SECTION 1. AMENDATORY 28 O.S. 2011, Section 31, is amended to read as follows:

Section 31. Notwithstanding any other provisionof law, the clerk of the district court, or the clerk of any other court ofrecord, shall charge and collect the following fees for services by themrespectively rendered and none others, except as otherwise provided by law:

Approving bond or undertaking, including certificate and seal..................... $3.00

Making copy of an instrument of record or on file, first page......................... $1.00

subsequent pages (each).................. $0.50

Certifying to any instrument (each)........ $0.50

Authentication of court records............ $5.00

Receiving and paying out money in pursuance of law or order ofcourt....................... 1%

provided, however, that such chargeshall not exceed $300.00.

Application, issuing, entering return and recording marriagelicense if the applicants submit a certificate that states the applicants havecompleted ~~the~~ eight (8) hours or more of an approved premaritalcounseling program pursuant to Section 5.1 of Title 43 of the Oklahoma Statutes........................ $5.00

Application, issuing, entering return and recording marriagelicense if the applicants ~~do not~~ submit a certificate that states theapplicants have completed ~~the~~ at least two (2) hours but less thaneight (8) hours of an approved premarital counseling program pursuant toSection 5.1 of Title 43 of the Oklahoma Statutes................................ $50.00

Conveyance of full-blood Indian heirs to interest in inheritedlands, same to be accounted for as other fees............................... $5.00

Posting notice outside the courthouse..... $10.00

Mailing, by any type of mail, writs, warrants, orders, process,command or notice for each person.............................. $10.00,or

actual expense, whichever isgreater, except ordinary mailing of first-class mail in probate cases, for eachcase................ $10.00, or

actual expense, whichever isgreater.

For the actual cost of all postage in each case in excess of........................ $10.00, or

actual expense, whichever isgreater.

For filing and indexing of disclaimers other than in pendingprobate or civil cases pursuant to the provisions of Section 751 et seq. ofTitle 60 of the Oklahoma Statutes.............. $5.00

SECTION 2. AMENDATORY 43 O.S. 2011, Section 5, is amended to read as follows:

Section 5. A. Persons desiring to be married in this state shall complete no lessthan two (2) hours of an approved premarital counseling program and shall submitan application in writing signed and sworn to in person before the clerk of thedistrict court by both of the parties setting forth:

1. The place of residence of each party;

2. The full legal name and the age of each party as they appear upon or arecalculable from a certified copy of the birth certificate, the current driverlicense or identification card, the current passport or visa, or any othercertificate, license or document issued by or existing pursuant to the laws ofany nation or of any state, or political subdivision thereof, accepted as proofof identity and age;

3. For each party, the full name by which the party will be known after themarriage, which shall become the full legal name of the party upon the filingof the marriage license and certificate with the court, as required by law;

4. That the parties are not disqualified from or incapable of entering intothe marriage relation; and

5. ~~Whether~~ That the parties have successfully completed apremarital counseling program consisting of no less than two (2) hours. The parties shall submit a certificate ofcompletion to be filed with the application.

B. 1. Upon application pursuant tothis section and the payment of fees as provided in Section 31 of Title 28 ofthe Oklahoma Statutes, if the clerk of the district court is satisfied of thetruth and sufficiency of the application and that there is no legal impedimentto such marriage, the court clerk shall issue the marriage license authorizingthe marriage and a marriage certificate, which shall be incorporated as one document. As required by law, the marriage certificateshall be completed immediately following the marriage, and the marriage licenseand certificate shall be returned to the court clerk. 2. Parties to be married and who present acertificate to the clerk of the district court that states the parties havecompleted ~~the~~ no less than eight (8) hours of an approved premaritalcounseling program pursuant to Section 5.1 of this title shall be entitled topay a reduced fee for a marriage license in an amount provided in Section 31 ofTitle 28 of the Oklahoma Statutes.

2. Parties to be married and who present a certificate to the clerk of thedistrict court that states the parties have completed ~~the~~ no lessthan eight (8) hours of an approved premarital counseling program pursuantto Section 5.1 of this title shall be entitled to pay a reduced fee for amarriage license in an amount provided in Section 31 of Title 28 of theOklahoma Statutes.

C. In the event that one or both of the parties are under legal age, theapplication shall have been on file in the court clerk's office for a period ofnot less than seventy-two (72) hours prior to issuance of the marriage license.

D. The marriage license shall be valid in any county within the state.

E. The provisions hereof are mandatory and not directory except under thecircumstances set out in the provisions of Section 3 of this title.

SECTION 3. AMENDATORY 43 O.S. 2011, Section 5.1, is amended to read as follows:

Section 5.1 A. The clerk of the district court shall reducethe fee for a marriage license as prescribed by Section 31 of Title 28 of theOklahoma Statutes to persons who have successfully completed a noless than eight (8) hours of an approved premarital counseling programmeeting the conditions specified by this section.

B. 1. Apremarital counseling program shall be conducted by a health professional, anofficial representative of a religiousinstitution, or a person trained by the principal authors or duly authorizedagents of the principal authors of nationally recognized marriage educationcurriculum including, but not limited to, Prevention & RelationshipEnhancement Program (PREP). Uponsuccessful completion of the program, the counseling program provider shallissue to the persons a certificate signed by the instructor of the counselingprogram. The certificate shall statethat the named persons have successfully completed the premarital counselingrequirements. ~~A minimum of four (4)hours of education or counseling shall be necessary for successful completionof the marriage education curriculum~~ The certificate shall be providedto the clerk of the district court upon application for marriage.

2. For purposes of this subsection, the term“health professional” means a person licensed or certified by this state topractice psychiatry or psychology; a licensed social worker with experience inmarriage counseling; a licensed marital and family therapist; or a licensedprofessional counselor.

SECTION 4. AMENDATORY 43 O.S. 2011, Section 6, is amended to read as follows:

Section 6. A. ~~The~~ A marriage license ~~provided for in this title~~ shallcontain:

1. The date of its issuance;

2. The name of the court issuing the license, and the name of the city ortown and county in which the court is located;

3. The full legal names of the persons authorized to be married by thelicense, the full legal names by which the persons will be known after themarriage, their ages, and their places of residence;

4. Directions to any person authorized by law to perform and solemnize themarriage ceremony;

5. A designation specifying that the parties have received premaritalcounseling and the number of hours completed;

6. The date by which thecompleted marriage certificate, along with the marriage license, shall bereturned to the judge or court, which shall not be more than thirty (30) daysfrom the date of its issuance; and

6. 7. Any otherinformation, declarations, seals and signatures, as required by law.

B. The marriage certificate provided for in this title shall containappropriate wording and blanks to be completed and endorsed, as required by Section8 of this title, by the person solemnizing or performing the marriage ceremony,the witnesses, and the persons who have been married.

SECTION 5. AMENDATORY 43 O.S. 2011, Section 107.2, is amended to read as follows:

Section 107.2 A. In all actions for divorce, separatemaintenance, guardianship, paternity, custody or visitation, includingmodifications or enforcements of a prior court order, where the interest of achild under eighteen (18) years of age is involved, the court ~~may~~ shallrequire all adult parties to attend an educational program concerning, asappropriate, the impact of separate parenting and coparenting on children, theimplications for visitation and conflict management, development of children,separate financial responsibility for children and such other instruction asdeemed necessary by the court. Theprogram shall be educational in nature and not designed for individual therapy.

B. Each judicial district may adopt its ownlocal rules governing the program.

SECTION 6. This act shall become effective November 1, 2012.

53-2-7980 SDR 01/09/12

Paperwork Answered before the Prayers Were

2012-01-18T13:22:00.002-06:00

photo courtesy of http://thinkprogress.org/green

Why Throw Tax-payer Money at a Tax-payer Problem

When You Can Pray for Free?

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Some of you may remember that Gov. Mary Fallin-Christensen of Oklahoma got in a huff when her administration requested disaster relief from the Feds a few months ago and it was denied. Naturally, she played it as a personal affront from Obama himself.

The US Dept. of Agriculture just announced 33 states will be receiving (guess?) disaster relief money.
Among the list are red, blue, and purple states that had agricultural difficulties during 2011 due to severe weather conditions.
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20120118/NEWS11/301180094/-1/RSS

Oklahoma will get a bit over $5 million.
http://www.theolympian.com/2012/01/18/1953457/list-of-states-getting-usda-disaster.html

Perhaps the marked weather change that's beyond the heretofore normal variation has been brought on by global warming, in turn brought on by excessive use of fossil fuel exported, in part, from Oklahoma? But, no, this can't be because Oklahoma's senior Senator, Jim Mountain Inhofe, has said global warming is a myth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-roberts/inhofes-speech-and-right-_b_30242.html

In addition, Mrs. Fallin-Christensen pleaded with sky-god believing Oklahomans to pray for rain for three days to "move" the heart of their god, as if this god's heart might be as dessicated as the landscape was during the summer of 2011 and needed the sweat of farmers, the tears of widows and orphans to soften it. http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/07/18/271658/climate-denying-oklahoma-governor-tells-residents-to-pray-for-rain/

But it would seem the USDA answered her paperwork before her god could get around to answering her commanded prayers.

Oh, but silly me, that's just the Democrats throwing money at a problem just like they always do. So shouldn't Gov. Fallin-Christensen refuse this 5 million dollars just like she refused 54 million dollars to begin a health insurance exchange for her state residents?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53216.html

Why throw taxpayer money at a tax-payer problem when you can pray for free?

Presidential Wannabes and Gay/Lesbian Civil Equality

2011-12-29T10:34:00.000-06:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) I'm not singling out the campaign of Ron Paul for its homo-hatred. Of the current GOPer candidates, some are even more vehemently opposed to gay/lesbian civil equality than Rep. Paul.

Now that we gays are the prime target for homo-hatred and assorted flat-earthers for this election cycle, why does it seem to me we're not more actively engaged in protest?

These political goons mean business, they're not kidding, we really ARE hated, it's not just a trick to get attention.

I go occasionally to some of the church services in Oklahoma City and the suburbs to hear in person what the congregations hear from their paid leaders. The vitriol and responsive amens is astounding even as my gaydar battery is running low from all the near-by signals its picking up.

Our gay-supportive religious friends won't help us as much as we'd like as that would mean calling out the homo-haters as wrong. Both our homo-friends as well as the homo-haters believe in the SAME supernatural force so their religious blood alignment will be respected to our civil rights detriment.

No gay man or woman I know or read about is advocating the diminution of anyone's religious freedom no matter how repugnantly it's presented. However, the advocacy of the homo-haters who intend to impose their religious viewpoints into CIVIL law by which ALL citizens must live--gay or straight, religious or atheist/agnostic--must be opposed.

This quote from James Madison sums it up:

"Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions may establish, with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute threepence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"

Death Penalty For Gays: Ron Paul Courts The Religious Fringe In Iowa

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/ron-paul-hired-anti-gay-activist-to-run-iowa-campaign.php?ref=fpblg

Ron Paul Campaign Scrubs Radical Anti-Gay Pastor From Website

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/ron-paul-campaign-scrubs-radical-anti-gay-pastor-from-website.php

Ron Paul's Iowa Campaign Director Mike Heath Board Chair Of Anti-Gay Group

htt p://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=10485&MediaType=1&Category=26

Paul Courting the Fringe: Touted Endorser Wants Death Penalty For Gays
http://talkingpointsmemo.com

Gay/Lesbian Opponent Announces Run for Oklahoma Senate

2011-11-20T13:06:00.003-06:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) In this morning's sermon--a sermon filled with early American history, filtered though the prism of the Bible, God's inerrant word--Pastor Paul K. Blair of Edmond's Fairview Baptist Church, announced to his enthusiastic congregation that he intends to file for Oklahoma State Senate District 41.

In his public sermon, Blair recounted a meeting he went to earlier this year where his friend Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council--who he has known for seven years, the last two being described as a "close friendship'--was "discouraged" by the inability to attract a sufficient number of godly men to run for public office and return America to its Christian founding.

Blair has answered this call and told his congregation he will continue at Fairview and will be a "citizen-servant-legislator."

Continuing after the standing ovation Blair remarked that some Oklahoma Democrats and Republican legislators claim adherence to God's word during election but then forget their promises and work not for God, but for themselves by creating comfortable retirement opportunities or move on to higher offices in government.

Seemingly trying out some campaign slogans Blair told his flock that, "The godly must rule God's people", "Faith is an endurance race", "We're on active duty."

The incumbent in SD 41 is Senator Clark Jolley who is in his second term.

Prior to his announcement Blair referred to the Oklahoma City Council meeting on November 15 that approved by a vote of 7-2 a resolution that includes sexual orientation protection in the hiring/retention policies of Oklahoma City government.

Blair mocked the invocation of Rev. Jeff Hamilton who opened his remarks with a reference to the "god of many names." Blair maintains there is only one god. The resolution was introduced by Ward 2 Councilman Ed Shadid, who Blair termed "godless" and disagrees with Shadid's council remarks comparing gay and lesbian inequality in America to the Nazi era WW II Germany.

Blair was the first public citizen to also address the November 15 meeting stating there was no need to protect "homosexuals" as the current law already protected everyone. Blair has promoted himself frequently as an opponent to gay/lesbian civil equality associating himself with Republican Rep. Sally Kern and her husband, Dr. Steve Kern of Olivett Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.

Homo-haters Rallying Around the Flag

2011-11-14T20:45:00.004-06:00

Progressive colleagues,

I've received this email from a very reliable source and thought you might want to see it. In addition, there is a robo-call that I have listened to from Paul Blair saying much the same thing as in his email posted below.

As we know, the homo-haters will "lose" no rights that they didn't have before Tuesday's OKC Council vote. Gay and lesbian citizens who pay the same taxes and bear the same responsibilities as the homo-haters will, however, gain the recognition that is inherent in our birthright as citizens.

Homo-haters have never had the right to impose religious values in the law books, be it federal, state, or municipal codes.

The mis-leading information from Paul Blair that all citizens are protected by the Constitution needs closer examination. If gays and lesbians really were protected we wouldn't be having this contretemps would we? I don't think gay and lesbian citizens want anything that isn't already inherently ours, or diminishes the rights of others.

Civil rights can not be rationed nor raffled to the highest bidder at the ballot box.

You can use the SAME contact information below to contact the OKC city council to make your views known.

James Nimmo
Oklahoma City

========================================================

From: scottesk@juno.com
Sent: 11/14/2011 12:34:29 P.M. Central Standard Time
Subj: EXTREMELY URGENT - ACTION NEEDED

Howdy, Fellow Inhabitants of the Sovereign Sooner State!
Even if you don't live anywhere near Oklahoma City, you have a right to call the Mayor and the city council members, because a decision to give sodomites special rights affects you very directly, because it would further spread a harmful trend in Oklahoma, where other cities might start pushing for such abominations. I'm told that the city council has already received many phone calls, and I haven't heard that any have been for this. Keep up the pressure. This looks very winnable :-) ---Sooner Scott---

Scott Esk
10109 S Douglas Ave
Oklahoma City, OK 73139
Phone: 405 237 0242

Please note: forwarded message attached

From: Jenni White <jlwplusdmw@gmail.com>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: EXTREMELY URGENT - ACTION NEEDED
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:39:47 -0600

____________________________________________________________
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$200,000 loan for $803/month. See New Payment - No SSN Rqd. Save Now!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3131/4ec15efc857f32a909st06duc

-----Original Message-----
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:39:47 -0600
Subject: EXTREMELY URGENT - ACTION NEEDED
From: Jenni White
To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Please, drop whatever you are doing and phone or email each OKC City Council Member and ask them NOT to include consideration for Gender Orientation. Christians will begin losing even more of our rights should homosexuals become a protected class. Once they do, Christians become even more the 'enemy'. Thanks for your time!

From: Reclaiming America For Christ

Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 10:15 PM

Subject: Oklahoma City Council Meeting 8:30 am, Tuesday November 15

The OKC Council will consider adding "Gender Orientation" as a special protected class within city government on Tuesday morning. I invite you to call and/or e-mail the Mayor and every Councilman and express your disapproval of this act. Forward this email to all of your friends and family who live in the area and wish to protect Biblical morality.

Mayor	Mick Cornett	(405) 297-2424	mayor@okc.gov
Ward 1	Gary Marrs	(405) 297-2404	Ward1@okc.gov
Ward 2	Ed Shadid	(405) 297-2402	Ward2@okc.gov
Ward 3	Larry McAtee	(405) 297-2404	Ward3@okc.gov
Ward 4	Pete White	(405) 297-2402	Ward4@okc.gov
Ward 5	David Greenwell	(405) 297-2569	Ward5@okc.gov
Ward 6	Meg Salyer	(405) 297-2402	Ward6@okc.gov
Ward 7	Skip Kelly	(405) 297-2569	Ward7@okc.gov
Ward 8	Patrick Ryan	(405) 297-2404	Ward8@okc.gov

I also invite you to attend the Council meeting. Always conduct yourself with grace and respect; however, this council must know that we oppose this action.

There has only been one alleged case of discrimination reported in the last 12 years. This is an effort by Councilman Ed Shadid to pay back one of his major constituent groups (homosexuals) just as Obama has done at the Federal level. As Employment Czar Chai Feldblum admits the battle between homosexual "rights" and Christian rights is a zero sum game. "Gays win, Christians lose!"

All citizens have equal protection under the law according to our Constitution. We do not need to create a special protected class for the sin of sodomy. For more information, visit: www.ra4c.org

Council Meeting
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
8:30 AM

City Hall
200 N. Walker
3rd Floor Council Chambers
Free parking is available at the Sheridan/Walker Parking Garage (501 West Sheridan). Parking Tickets must be validated in the Mayor's/City Manager's reception area.

Paul K. Blair

Pastor, Fairview Baptist Church
www.fairviewbaptistedmond.org
Reclaiming America for Christ
www.reclaimamericaforchrist.org
Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ
www.reclaimoklahoma.org

Other Sites You May Wish To Visit:

mailto:info@reclaim-action.org

Click here to forward this email to a friend

Reclaiming America For Christ
PO Box 31433
Edmond, OK 73003
US

Read the VerticalResponse marketing policy.

--
Jenni White

Scurrilous Article From Tulsa Concerning Jim Roth's Recent Appointment

2011-09-30T14:25:00.004-05:00

OKLAHOMA CITY) The Tulsa Beacon of Tulsa, Oklahoma,
( http://www.tulsabeacon.com/ ) recently printed a scurrilous op/ed concerning the appointment earlier this month of Mr. Jim Roth, formerly Oklahoma County Commissioner, elected twice; and lately State Corporation Commissioner, appointed by then-Governor Brad Henry to fill the unexpired term of a predecessor, to the State Elections Board (http://city-sentinel.com/?p=1743 )that supervises public elections in Oklahoma.

Before any reputable newspaper publishes an opinion piece I think it should check to see if its example of morality, in this case, now-Governor Mary Fallin-Christensen, is really all the writer thinks she's cracked up to be. In complaining about the appointment of Mr. Roth, the Tulsa Beacon has clearly dropped the ball.

Funny how the Beacon article linked below doesn't mention that now Governor Fallin-Christensen is a divorced woman who was having an affair with one of her state-paid bodyguards while still married to her first husband when she was lieutenant-governor. ( http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=13&articleid=19981222_Ne_a13divor&archive=yes )

That behavior doesn't sound like an example of her "genuine Christian values" in the way the writer is meaning to convey.

And Roth's opponent in the Corporation Commissioner race was shown by the Roth campaign to have forged her father-in-law's signature to a document that she in turn notarized. ( http://www.edmondsun.com/local/x519235706/Edmonds-Murphy-unseats-Roth-for-Corporation-Commission-seat )

And finally, Mr. Roth was not "soundly defeated" in his Corporation election; he lost by 4%. Yes, a margin of anything less than 50%-plus-one is a defeat, but 4% is hardly a landslide when both of the candidates were not widely known across the state.

While I'm very glad to see Mr. Roth back in public service, I think the Tulsa Beacon should have let sleeping dogs lie.

Here's the Beacon article link: http://www.tulsabeacon.com/?p=5455

American Military Used Again for Social Experiments

2011-09-21T13:08:00.003-05:00

Just as the military was the experimental laboratory for the integration of America's Armed Forces in regards to race, skin color, and national origin in 1948, so is it again being used to experiment with integration based on sexual orientation.

Just as the racial integration of the military was good for the country, let's work towards using the undoubted success of this orientation experiment to make sure we citizens get a Congress that will pass, and a president who will sign, a bill addressing gay/lesbian discrimination that exists in employment, namely the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

And the next law that needs repealing is DOMA, the Defense (sic) of Marriage Act (DOMA).

The passage of ENDA and the repealing of DOMA will incorporate all of us gay and lesbian citizens fully into the fabric of American life. These accomplishments will be even more encompassing of our inherent rights of citizenship than the repeal of DADT.

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank recently spoke on the House floor regarding the repeal of DADT:

Mr. Speaker, we have a history in this country of prejudice being enacted; and through the efforts of many people, the policy embodying that prejudice can be overcome. And as we debate any single effort to overcome prejudice, we are told that the effect of diminishing that prejudice, the effect of repealing that rule will be chaos, will be disorder, will be social unrest; and it is never true.

Seven years ago, the State I am privileged to represent in this House established same-sex marriage; and there were predictions of doom, predictions that this would be a terribly upsetting factor. None of those predictions have come true. Not a one. As we debated last year the repeal of the unfortunate statute which said that brave and patriotic gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender members of the armed services would have to lie about who they were, would have to hide who they were or else lose the right to serve their country, a right which some evade but for which they were prepared to fight, we once again heard predictions that this would be disruptive, that it would cause diminution of the ability of our brave men and women to serve their purposes.

Let me predict today, Mr. Speaker, that every one of those prejudices 3 and 4 years from now will be proven as wrong as the predictions that same-sex marriage would be disorganizing. We will now see gay men and lesbians serving this country openly and proudly as they have been serving this country proudly, but unfortunately not openly, for some time. I hope people are making note of the predictions that were made on the floor of this House, in the Senate, and in the country about the negative consequences of ``don't ask don't tell,'' because they will soon be shown to have been wholly false.

Text of Rep. Frank's remarks taken from the Congressional Record:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r112:8:./temp/~r112ZRNWWH::

Oklahoma's Bigot-in-Chief has Learned Nothing in 10 years

2011-09-10T14:36:00.007-05:00

graphic courtesy of Oklahoma Observer

As 9/11 Approaches Sally Kern Still Claims Gays More Dangerous Than Terrorists

(Oklahoma City) By her own words Oklahoma's Bigot-in-Chief, GOPer House Rep. Sally Kern, has learned nothing in ten years.Never missing an opportunity to step out from the shadows of desperation, Mrs. Kern is using the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to sing yet again her hit-single tune, "Gays are More Dangerous than Terrorists".
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/as-911-approaches-sally-kern-claims-gays-more-dangerous-than-terrorists/politics/2011/09/10/26730

A recent interview with her colleague, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, to promote her new book, maudlinly titled, "The Stoning of Sally Kern",has her singing the same lyrics in the same key as she did in 2008. http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kern-doubles-down-claim-homosexuality-more-dangerous-terrorist-attacks

Referencing her religion's tradition of hyperbole and myth Kern claims a victim's suffering without showing the wounds. That she would use such a description for herself when such a condemnation is still used in the world for capitol punishment, shows the lack of intelligence she's so proud to display. People who are stoned do not live to write a memoir about it. She cries the crocodile tears to drum up sympathy and campaign dollars.

Intentionally making herself a celebrity, she disingenuously feigns amazement that anyone would call her out for the lies she tells, further adding to her self-proclaimed victim-hood.Sally Kern never gives up about telling lies that represent her own twisted attempt at projecting her own fears.

If I were a fundie, preached Inquisitional nonsense, and in addition, had a possible gay/lesbian family member, I'd probably be doing the same thing she and her husband, Steve Kern, do.

Those who protest gay/lesbian diversity the loudest often turn out to have a big lock on their own closet. Why does private behavior and civil equality inflame the imagination of our worst enemies?

As the documentary Outragehttp://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=14917 shows, the wrath of our civil equality enemies goes past simple jealousy and entries on a score sheet. I think genuine mental instability is on display.

Fundies don't live in the real world of diversity and change. The Bronze Age was good enough for the invention of their religion and it's good enough for them now.The tiny minority of registered Oklahoma voters who live in Kern's Legislative District #84 have kept her on the public payroll since 2004. http://www.okhouse.gov/District.aspx?District=84

I find it remarkable that despite good candidates running against her, this fearful majority in her district prevails.

What does this fact say about our efforts to elect reasonable candidates? What does it say about the power of ignorance and superstition?

Until we replace these sorely blinkered politicians through peaceful and legal means, we'll be hearing more from lawmakers such as Sally Kern.

They must be drowned out by the volume of our speech, lost in the presence of our crowds, dissected by the precision of our words.

Wolf-in-sheep's-clothing Santorum Respects "Gay Decision"

2011-08-20T20:28:00.003-05:00

graphic from http://www.sc-bankruptcy-blog.com

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Sneaky former Senator Santorum, one of the best homo-haters currently living, has created a true straw-man argument when he says being gay is a "choice".

Read this quote from a recent story linked below: "Santorum suggested being gay is a choice when he said “I respect that decision.”
http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=9263&Category=26&MediaType=1

There has been no public announcement made by any honest gay man or woman, or any reputable gay/lesbian advocacy group, that sexual orientation is a "choice." GOPer presidential candidate Santorum claims to have gay friends with whom he disagrees "vehemently" and I claim to attend services at the Westboro Baptist Church.

A straw-man argument is one where the speaker puts words in the voice of his opponent in order to create a false argument. This style of falsity masquerading as truth puts the opponent in the defensive position.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Santourm is pretending to "respect" gay people by implying that somehow we gay/lesbian citizens have reached a collective decision that our orientation is one of "choice."

This seeming kindness of the homo-haters is the new wolf-in-sheep's-clothing tactic aiming to lull the gullible and clueless into thinking that opposing equality for America's gay/lesbian taxpayers has nothing to do with plain prejudice.

He claims his views are about policy and his religious belief, not personal animosity. Has he read the Constitution's 14th Amendment, section 1? How about the 1st Amendment with its separation of church and state? Just like his bible, it says nothing about sexual orientation being an impediment to full enjoyment of USA citizenship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Santorum might take a few minutes to read the entire Bill of Rights instead of cherry-picking the parts he likes. But this habit is hard to break since this must be how he reads his bible as well.

AMAZING WORD GAME

2011-08-04T10:40:00.001-05:00

Did you know that, the words "race car" spelled backwards still spells
"race car"?

And that "eat" is the only word that, if you take the first letter and
move it to the last, spells its own past tense, "ate"?

And if you rearrange the letters in "Tea Party Republicans," and add just
a few more letters, it spells: "Shut the fuck up you free-loading,
progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent hypocrites,
and deal with the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under Bush and
that our president is black, so get over it."

Isn't that interesting?

Kern's Secret Closet of Shame

2011-08-02T21:40:00.004-05:00

graphic courtesy of http://www.equalityloudoun.org/

Kern: It’s ’Hateful’ to Say Gays Are Born That Way

Background story from Edge New York http://www.edgenewyork.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=politics&sc2=&sc3=&id=122884

or http://tinyurl.com/43tlk44

My take on Oklahoma GOPer Rep. Sally Kern:

I have to ask if she's fearful she might be related to a "hateful" gay or lesbian?

She has such an all-consuming interest in people who have never done her or any of her family harm.

Kern attempts to give the impression of fairness by saying she doesn't hate anyone and that people who disagree with her are entitled to use their freedom of speech. However, when someone does use their freedom of speech to oppose her by citing facts not myths, she gets all twisted and claims HER freedom is being oppressed.

When Kern paints herself into a verbal corner with her contradicting opinions and fun-house mirror denials she morphs into the victim of her own conspiracies.

The freedom she speaks of is really not about speech but the freedom she and her colleagues have used in the past to keep G/Ls oppressed, discriminated against by law, and pushed back in the closet by using the police power of the government as they are accustomed to doing. She has not learned to share as many of us were taught as young children.

I have a hunch she's eaten up to the point of insanity with the suspicion that a near family member is gay. Who that is I have no way of knowing but readers can draw their own conclusions from the facts in the article above. This is the secret in her own closet of shame.

She can't accept the fact that gays and lesbians are normal taxpayers, well-adjusted in their personalities, and contribute time and money to civic improvement.

She's highly resistant to having her flat-earth view rounded by getting to know some of us personally without the filter of her religious cataracts.

Oklahoma participants submit written statement to Senate Judiciary Hearing on Defense of Marriage Act

2011-07-20T06:05:00.003-05:00

My partner, Don, and I have been selected along with 5 other same-gender couples from around the country by the Courage Campaign's Testimony project to submit a written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this coming Wednesday, July 20, 2011 in DC. http://www.couragecampaign.org/

This hearing is to discuss the 15th anniversary of the signing of DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Bill Clinton.

DOMA forbids Federal recognition of same-gender marriages even in states that recognize such marriages.

http://www.domawatch.org/about/federaldoma.html

The intent of DOMA has been widely copied by over 40 states including Oklahoma by passage of SQ 711 in 2004 (see attachment).

"I'm really excited by this opportunity as Don and I are the only ones from this part of the country to participate from among the hundreds of statements submitted to the Courage Campaign. Our Testimony statement will be entered into the Congressional hearing record. It will show that we contribute to our country's life in ways that betray the viciously stereotyped misinformation intentionally handed out by the country's homo-haters, be they national spokespeople or Oklahoma legislators."

"Conservative" Okie Legislators Plow the Furrows for Federal Farm Subsidy

2011-07-10T12:48:00.003-05:00

image from http://www.grainsessential.ca/

Do GOPer women benefit from their husbands's prosperity?

(OKLAHOMA CITY) The Tulsa World has investigated the financial reports of several Oklahoma legislators and governor to see how much in the way of Federal farm subsidies they have received over the last several years. Some of these tax-paid legislators are professional farmers while most are engaged in the agricultural industry as a side-line to their white-collar day jobs as lawyers and doctors. ( http://bit.ly/qhf247 )

Some have reported the subsidies as income as required by law, others have not. Most of the payments have been for wheat crops.

Let's look at two of the GOPers who have cried the loudest about the uselessness and waste of government spending, Rep. Leslie Osborn, Tuttle; and Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin-Christensen.

There's this comment from Rep. Osborn: "Osborn said receiving the subsidies does not contradict her fiscally conservative platform. She also noted that the payments were in her husband's name."

This is a laughable excuse! Does she not benefit from her husband's prosperity, yes or no?

Towards the end of this article there is a comment from Gov. Mary Fallin-Christensen's spokesperson that Gov. Fallin-Christensen is "not involved with her husband's Blue Chip Farm business." According to the Tulsa World's investigation Fallin-Christensen's husband, Wade Christensen, an Oklahoma City lawyer, "has collected more than $1.96 million in federal farm subsidies since 1995."

Again I ask, does Gov. Fallin-Christensen benefit from the prosperity of her second husband, yes or no?

Both these elected women claim to be conservative, small-government leaders yet fall back on the time-honored excuse of being subservient to their private-sector husbands when the wives get caught with their hands in the Federal cookie jar--a treat they want to keep the rest of us from enjoying. They try to skedaddle under the chicken wire fence of IRS and ethics committee rules.

As these two Oklahoma patrons (in the Spanish pronunciation) receive Federal payments in agriculture, both of these women are opposed to public health care for America's citizens, in other words, Medicare for all, not just those 65 years of age and older. While they enjoy the Cadillac of health care for themselves and their families, we peons are expected to get by as best we can.

As Oklahoma leaders, or mendacious mendicants if the truth were more clearly stated, Osborn and Fallin-Christensen demonstrate a shallow, crocodile-tear empathy with Oklahoma's struggling middle- and working-class families. To paraphrase a famous queen of history, "Have they no cake? Let them eat wheat."

Obama has Confused Scientific Evolution with Political Evolution

2011-07-06T21:14:00.005-05:00

image from http://www.wheatandtares.org

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Obama says his views on same-gender marriage are evolving and he's also introduced his religious beliefs as a reason he's not in favor of same-gender marriage, but is instead lukewarm for civil unions. I guess "God's" vocabulary doesn't recognize the phrase "civil unions". Who knew Obama talked directly to "God"? That Oval Office must have one hell of a communications system because George Bu$h talked directly to "God" as well.

As Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts has written,

"Not that doing the right thing should be a matter of public opinion, but support for marriage equality is climbing toward the majority. Voices of fear are being shouted down, winds of change are blowing, and we approach a crossroads of possibility where the need for leadership is critical. Two words of advice, then, for President Obama: Evolve faster."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/7633033.html#ixzz1RNh3PG3g

Perhaps Obama won't be evolving much because "God" doesn't evolve--"God's" been perfect and without error since "He" conceived himself. So if Obama's getting his advice from his "God", then it's going to be a cold day in "Hell" before we see a real advance in Federal law about marriage equality.

Let's be out in the open about the opposition to same-gender marriage. Plain and simple, religion is being used as the excuse and the shield to support the every-day variety of prejudice and fear whether it's at the grassroots or the top of the political food chain. The civil rights, happiness, and livelihood of me and millions of other gay and lesbian American taxpayers are being held hostage by flat-earth thinking.

I'm so amused by those elected reps and senators, either at the state or DC level, who always invoke their constituents's religious views when it comes to a civil rights vote.

Would that elected person vote in favor of the re-institution of miscegenation--the prohibition of inter-racial marriage--or maybe a return to segregated public facilities if his/her constituents demanded it?

Here's a link to an op/ed by Kerry Eleveld about marriage equality.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/06/obama-argues-federalist-approach-but-states-rights-wrong-for-marriage-equality.html or

http://tinyurl.com/6gmpylm

-- “It’s all about the word of God. It truly is,” offered Delegate Cheryl Glenn, a Baltimore Democrat, as she presented an amendment that would change the word “marriage” in the bill to “civil unions.” The measure failed on a voice vote.

“

Making a callous argument to justify a political calculation isn’t advancing equality, it’s delaying it.
”

Another Democratic delegate, Jay Walker of Prince George’s County, said he couldn’t ignore the wishes of his churchgoing constituency.

“My foundation, my beliefs, the people who have always backed me…have asked for us not to vote for this bill, and I’m going to respect their wish,” Walker said, though the legislation was pulled from the floor before a vote was taken."

I would recommend President Obama attend a First Amendment refresher course. It's all well and good to have a religion but when it interferes with the equality under law of law-abiding citizens it needs to move out of the way.

Catholic Church Expanding Beyond Roe v. Wade

2011-06-20T20:34:00.002-05:00

Here's the link to a Nation magazine article about the next privacy issue the
Catholic Church thinks it can bully its way in to achieving: self-deliverance under medical guidance when terminally ill.

http://www.thenation.com/article/161478/catholic-church-amps-its-fight-against-aid-dying

I know there will be several members of the Catholic religion who will
read this and support their Conference of Bishops in its plan to remove
another choice of free citizens, this time the choice of ending one's life when
death from disease and organ failure is inevitable.

Thinking they have abortion under control, the Conference is now ramping
up the heat on assisted suicide, aka, euthanasia, hoping to detour legislative
progress in the 47 states currently without euthanasia laws and to remove privacy of death from the CIVIL law books of the three states that do acknowledge this
right.

The Catholic Church wants to expand its power of intrusion beyond just pregnant women who are not Catholics, but to extend that power to all living adults, men and women, Catholic or non-Catholic.

I do not give the Catholic religion or any other religion my proxy to say
that I can not end my life under medical supervision when I and the
health professionals of my choice say there is no hope for a quality of life
that I wish to maintain.

I'm a dedicated advocate of living wills, durable powers-of-attorney, and other legal remedies that leave control of one's life with the adult.

If readers belong to a religion that frowns on self-deliverance, then
hold to those private tenets without dragging non-believers or those who hold
other religious/spiritual beliefs into still another intrusion and usurpation
of privacy by organized religion and using the police power of the state to enforce it.

I have had more than enough of the Bronze Age intruding into the 21st-century.

As an example of callousness posing as caring, a spokesperson quoted at the end of this article says out right that our lives are not our own.

If my life belongs to someone else, why am I paying all the bills?

Grassroots Get "Fertilized" on in North Carolina by Their Own

2011-06-05T14:15:00.005-05:00

Activists willing to get arrested are criticized for ---

getting arrested!!

(OKLAHOMA CITY) It's late spring in North Carolina and the grassroots activists are growing but apparently growing too fast for the A-list gay leaders who think they own the activist lawn. Those vigorous roots just got a spray of weed killer.

Qnotes, a North Carolina GLBT news source for the Tar Heel state (http://goqnotes.com/), is reporting that a demonstration on the floor of the State House of Representatives on June 2 resulted in the arrest of three activists.

To get arrested for civil disobedience takes some large cojones regardless of your gender and wouldn't you think that deserves to get some commendation from the people who stand to gain from the passage of legislation that would recognize our inherent citizenship as taxpayers regardless of sexual orientation and gender presentation?

Apparently that's too much growth for some openly gay leaders in North Carolina, the site of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Is their timorousness an attempt to apologize to the Democratic National Committee, hoping to curry favor with a national political party that has done little to act on our past loyalty and takes our votes and contributed dollars for granted? Is there a fear that the grassroots gay/lesbian activists will stage a demonstration discomfiting to the insulated, isolated powers who want a picture-perfect lawn with no crabgrass, no dandelions, so it's best to spray a pre-emergent now rather than later?

I don't live in North Carolina, but I have to ask just how much longer gay/lesbian people in any state are going to wait to defend their inherent citizenship from the encroachment, from the naked appropriation being forced on them by the religious right-wing, by the homo-haters, by the flat-earthers, even people ostensibly our friends, who deny the humanity of people who have done no harm to anyone, who are only demanding equal opportunity to the benefits for which they're paying taxes.

Those brave and forceful activists who marched on the floor of the North Carolina House of Representatives were criticized for demanding recognition of that birthright of citizenship. (http://goqnotes.com/11283/three-arrested-in-gay-protest-at-legislature/)

According to QNotes, Rep. Marcus Brandon (D-Guilford), the state’s only openly gay lawmaker, criticized the demonstration on the House floor, “The rally is a great venue to do it,” he said. “We had a press conference here [during the May 17 rally] and it was a much better way to talk about it, it was a much more powerful way to deal with it. Now that I know that was a gay group, I’m more disappointed.”

Even Ian Palmquist, executive director of the statewide Equality North Carolina, was reduced to apprehension in describing the June 3 event, “While we share the protesters’ passion for equal rights, we cannot condone today’s disruption of the House session,” Palmquist wrote on Twitter account.

Jeez, with alleged gay leaders who will run interference for the homo haters, who needs enemies! Have they been attending meetings with the Human Rights Campaign? HRC has already endorsed Barack Obama for another term as president, not even waiting for the formality of being asked for the endorsement. (http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/05/26/hrc-endorses-obama-for-election-2012/)

Such an early endorsement signals the White House that no negotiation is needed to keep the flowers of the HRC in their neatly weeded garden. There will be no onions in that petunia patch.

Jim Neal, one of those participating in the public demonstration and who was arrested, released a letter stating his concern that attempts by lawmakers to write discrimination into the state's constitution are a threat and intimidation toward GLBT citizens of North Carolina.

“I am no longer willing to passively bear witness to the ghettoization GLBT people, the poor, the middle class and the weak,” he wrote. “No body and no individual has the rightful dominion to diminish the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in our United States of America.”

I've advocated for a long time that concerted, consistent, peaceful civil disobedience is the last strategy we have to secure the equality we are guaranteed by citizenship. There is no point in continuing to let our enemies paint us as limp-wristed, ineffectual, sex-crazed, and scatterbrained.

We are individually responsible for our lives and not dependent on those who have gay agendas with footnotes.

Uncle Sam, meet Mrs. Jim Crow

2011-04-28T16:01:00.003-05:00

Mrs. Jim Crow, continuing her sermon yesterday, said, "Discrimination [is] part of our fallen nature. We're all sinful humans"

Mrs. Jim Crow, formally known as Oklahoma GOPer Rep. Sally Kern, first came to infamy as the woman with the truth, the crusading culture warrior for her god, who proclaimed that gay men are worse than terrorists, who like cancer, need to be removed.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/03/gays_worse_than_terrorists.php

http://normantranscript.com/local/x519023981/Kern-God-called-her-as-cultural-warrior

The former remarks were recorded and reported at semi-public lunches in March and August of 2008.

She also promoted a proclamation in July of 2009 stating that tolerance of the "gay lifestyle" causes divorce, financial meltdowns, and child abuse, just to mention three topics dear to her heart.
http://www.acluok.org/NewsEvents/Rep.Kern.htm

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/sally-kerns-proclamation-morality
(this link contains a PDF copy of Kern's proclamation.)

You can hear Mrs. Crow's latest effusions of intelligence recorded live in prepared remarks on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives at the link below.
I can't make this stuff up. Here are some of her best lines:

---"Minorities earn less than white people and women earn less than men because they don't work as hard and have less initiative.'

---“I taught school for 20 years and I saw a lot of people of color who didn't want to work as hard,” she said, reading from notes. “They wanted it given to them.”

---"Women do not want to work as hard as men."
http://newsok.com/kern-apologizes-for-comments-on-minorities-and-women-naacp-says-its-not-enough/article/3562825#ixzz1KqyPC9Tl

Move the slider to 7:44:50 to hear her preach the good news according to the gospel of mean spirited GOPers. These are people who never met an idea they couldn't wait to suck the life from, who can't wait to trash the aspirations of anyone who thinks or lives differently, who can't wait to infuse the body politic with venomous acid, who pollute the clear words of a leader like Dr. M.L. King with the scum scraped off the fangs of their foam-covered mouths. In short, they exult in torturing people who have done them no harm.

Mrs. Jim Crow says these things after careful coaching by her keepers, who tend this oracle of stupidity like a flame to raise money and to keep her name in the media. In her public remarks on the floor of the House she found nothing wrong with women earning less than men. She quoted the figure that women work for 77 cents for every dollar men are paid. If she's willing to use this ratio why doesn't she give back to the taxpayer this difference from her Representative House salary? She should put her money where her mouth is.

Complete contact information for Mrs. Jim Crow is available here:
http://www.okhouse.gov/District.aspx?District=84

or http://bit.ly/mFiQ48

The legislative video can be seen here:

http://okhouse.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=307

or http://bit.ly/kVChIm

Dr. Robin Meyers' We Are One Speech

2011-04-07T16:47:00.003-05:00

Dr. Robin Meyers is the senior minister at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City and one of the leading progressive voices in Oklahoma.

This speech was delivered on the south steps of the Oklahoma Capitol building as part of the WE ARE ONE rally movement held across the country.

More information can be found here:
http://www.mayflowerucc.org/Staff.html

Dr. Robin Meyers' We Are One rally speech:
We are One Rally
State Capitol 4/4/2011

I have long believed that America has the most patient workers
in the world. All that ended in a big way in Madison Wisconsin when
the state’s new governor tried to strip all public employees (except the
ones that voted for him), of their collective bargaining rights. Finally,
the Great Awakening has begun, and the people who actually get up
and go to work in this country—who teach our children, who put out
fires, who pick up the trash—got mad as hell and decided they weren’t
going to take it anymore.

For 30 years, since the election of Ronald Regan, we have been
living the myth of supply-side economics in this country. Simply put,
it holds that tax cuts for the rich will spur investment and economic
activity that will “trickle down” to the middle class and the poor. It
sounds good, and we continue to act as if it works, despite the fact that
we have 30 years of evidence that it doesn’t. Supply Side remains the
dominant economic theory of this country despite the fact that since
we started down this road, the rich have gotten fantastically richer,
the middle class has become stagnant or declined, and the ranks of the
poor have grown. As Ross Perot put it in his bid for president as a third-
party candidate, “We threw a lot of money at the top, and most of it
stayed up there.”

The reason is that the investor class does not spend most of the
money it gets in new tax breaks. Because a rich person doesn’t need a
new refrigerator or a new car (because he already has one), the money
mostly goes into stocks and acquisitions, or into elaborate schemes to
avoid paying any taxes at all, like off-shore accounts or other elaborate
depreciation schemes. General Electric and Bank of America, two of
the largest corporations in the world, pay absolutely no federal income
tax, while they use all public services for free—the courts, the roads,
the trade regulators, the patent enforcement—all of it paid for by you

and me—as if we are their servants.

The greatest threat to this country is the ever-widening gap
between rich and poor, and it now approaches levels not seen since
the age of the Robber Barons amassed enormous fortunes right before
the Great Depression. Only two things have ever slowed that process
down and protected the middle class—1) progressive tax rates and 2)
the power of collective bargaining for higher wages. That’s why the
Republicans are obsessed with two things: cutting taxes and trying to
destroy unions. And when we hold rallies like this, they accuse us of
engaging in class warfare. Let’s get something straight. Class warfare
has been going on for a long time now, and the rich won. The only
question now is whether the rest of us will get back into the fight.

To do this, first of all---we must call out and name the lies that
are begin told everyday in this country by the corporate owned media
that serves the investor class and allows politicians and pundits to
blame the Great Recession on American workers. Teachers (who are
the most underpaid and under appreciated members of our society),
did not cause The Great Recession; neither did firefighters, neither did
sanitation workers; neither did immigrants, including those who are
undocumented—the ones who put on every new roof in this city after
the big hail storm and who do most of the hardest manual labor in an
economy that both exploits and demonizes them. They did not cause
the Great Recession. Let’s get this straight.

Wall Street bandits and corrupt bankers and criminals in the
financial services sector caused the Great Recession. None of them
were punished; none of them have had to pay anything to repair the
enormous damage they have done. Instead, believing that a crisis is
a terrible thing to waste, the Rabid Right in this country wants to deal
with the deficit it has largely created by asking that those with the least
pay the most and those with the most pay nothing.

Make no mistake; many Republicans want to end Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid. No matter how devotedly Christian they
claim to be, they do NOT believe that we are our brother or sister’s
keeper. No matter how often they say they don’t believe in evolution,
they love Darwin with it comes to economics—it’s every man or woman
for him or herself, so let the law of the economic jungle rule. Forget
the golden rule. Let those with the gold rule. The philosophy of
today’s Republican Party can be summed up very simply: the market is
rational and can solve all the problems of life.

That is the most dangerous myth in the land today, and nobody
seems willing to stand up and say “The Emperor is naked!” The
prosperity that you promised us has not come to pass because the
premise upon which it was built is false. Without checks and balances
upon human greed, people will do terrible things to one another to
make their fortunes. Without reasonable regulations, they will destroy
the environment, poison the water, foul the air and do it all in the name
of what we truly worship in this country, which is the almighty dollar.
Unless we say “Enough is enough.” And only if we do more than just
say it. We need a new workers movement in this country, and we need
it now.

When America was the strongest and most prosperous, its
middle class was strong and prosperous. In the 50’s and 60’s, a time
that many conservatives like to point to as the “good old days,” one
out of every three workers belonged to a union. Now it’s one in
eight, and if Republicans have their way it will be zero. Taxes on the
wealthiest Americans under Eisenhower were at 70%. Today, the
effective tax rate is 16 percent. Workers on the other hand, pay
25% through payroll deductions, without any of the tax avoidance
schemes that corporations enjoy. Don’t forget, Republicans have never
favored raising the minimum wage, and never would unless forced by
Democrats to do so.

Two out of every three American corporations paid no federal
income in the last decade. When some of the largest banks paid
nothing into the treasury and then almost drove this country over the
cliff because of their greed and corruption, we bailed them out with the
tax dollars they didn’t even contribute to! So here is our real economic
system today: for corporations, profits are privatized, while risks are
socialized—the investor class gets to gamble with your money, and if
they win, they win, but if they lose, you lose.

Now, thanks to the disastrous Supreme Court ruling in Citizens
United, corporations are not just legal arrangements on paper for
making money. Corporations are now people with Constitutional rights
to contribute unlimited secret cash to political campaigns. Now we
are supposed to believe that if we saw a corporation walking down the
street, we would recognize it as one of our neighbors. Mr. and Mrs.
Nike. Mr. and Mrs. General Electric. Mr. and Mrs. Goldman Sachs.

If this sounds ludicrous then you are beginning to get the point.
We now live in a “corporateocracy”—and these shadowy and secretive
entities are more powerful than the government. They pay next
to nothing in taxes, which means they have more money to lobby
lawmakers to lower their taxes. They play but they don’t pay. Then
when they slip and fall, they go to the emergency room of the U.S.
Treasury and demand to be healed. That would be tax-payer funded
socialized medicine for corporations. The rest of us are on our own.

And if we remain divided, we will lose. Only if we join our voices,
only if we march together, only if organize, stay informed, stay
involved, and refuse to accept the death of the American middle class
will we be able to change things. We owe it to our kids. I just became
a grandfather and I owe it to my granddaughter. I refuse to let this
amazing country become a plutocracy, ruled by the Koch brothers.

Forty three years ago today Dr. Martin Luther King was
assassinated after standing up for the rights of public sector workers in
Memphis Tennessee. It would be a shame to just named streets after
Dr. King and not march down those same streets to demand the justice
that he lived and died for. Equal rights, equal treatment under the law,
equal opportunity. Wake up America! This country is too good to lose.

Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!

Thank you.

Can Oklahoma's citizens rouse themselves out of their obesity torpor?

2011-03-27T12:31:00.001-05:00

The Vermont House of Representatives recently passed a statewide health care plan by a vote of 92 to 49. The bill still needs passage by the Vermont Senate.

You can read about it here: http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12530
Vermont is 49th in population according to the latest Census figures. Plus they have many more elected representatives relative to their population.

Using this wikilink for the statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population)

Vermont has a ratio of House representatives of 1 to 4,100 of population. That looks to me like a very small crowd for lobbyists to hide in and a chance for every voter to make personal contact with their elected representative and to be remembered by that representative.

On the other hand, Oklahoma is 28th in population, just below the middle in numbers and in the geographic middle as the native-born so like to point out. And speaking of middle, Oklahoma has one of the highest obesity populations in America, weighing in at 30% or more. (http://www.hpj.com/archives/2009/aug09/aug17/0713OSUobesityinOKko.cfm)

The ratio of representative to district member is one for 38,265 citizens, lots of opportunity for lobbyists to get lost in the crowd as well as the individuality of the citizens.

Remember, these numbers represent the population, not just registered voters who are either informed about the need for health care or those just roused by Koch Brothers's paid propaganda.

Health care is a human right as this press release points out. It is not something to be doled out by your employer as a threat to keeping you in line on the job. Nor should universal health care be used as a campaign threat made by candidates whose intent in bringing up health care is as a ploy to make voters think the bad wicked government is trying to take away your "right" to die in pain and poverty and earlier than you might otherwise die.

Wouldn't you think Oklahoma's citizens could rouse themselves out of their obesity torpor and demonstrate for health care?

Mrs. Fallin campaigned for governor as a mother. Shouldn't a good X-tian values mother value the welfare of her state's population as well as her own genetic and second-marriage children's welfare?

ACLU of Oklahoma announces opening for Executive Director

2011-02-14T22:26:00.001-06:00

ACLU of Oklahoma announces opening for Executive Director

All the details and contact information are available at the website of ACLU of Oklahoma.

Share widely and re-post to any other website or blog.

http://www.acluok.org/Job-Opening.htm

Invasion of the Fetish People!!!

2011-02-11T15:40:00.001-06:00

Editors: In response to Jason Reese's February 9 Commentary about legislative morality I would like to say that it's one thing for Mr. Reese to have the courage of his personal convictions, but it's quite another thing to urge passage of legislation that would use the police power of the state to impose his convictions on others.

There is an old legal truism about arguing either the law or the truth when one of them is on your side, or resorting to pounding your fist on the table with as much conviction as possible when you have neither. Mr. Reese has only emotion on his side: a poor reason to use for enforcement of straitjacket laws that deal with intensely personal choices people make in their lives.

Mr. Reese is making a fetish of removing from others the freedoms that should be completely legal in a socially and religiously diverse society.

Society is not a psychiatrist's coach to use as a means to exorcise one's religious demons.

You can read Mr. Reese's op/ed here:
http://www.okgazette.com/oklahoma/article-10727-point-legislate-morality.html

Closing Obama's Pandora's Box

2011-01-25T21:51:00.008-06:00

graphic from Bilerico.com

White House Spokesperson Gibbs Trys to Stifle Questions
about Obama's Marriage Question

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Funny, isn't it, how politicians can talk on and on about almost any topic, except when it comes to the civil rights of America's gay and lesbian taxpayers, especially when the topic is same-gender marriage.

Funny, too, is the ability that Obama has to distance himself from his roots the higher he went up the political food chain. He claims to be "evolving" in his opinion of same-gender marriage yet this Chicago activist questionnaire from 1996 shows a clear case of DE-volution as Obama's career advanced.

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/photospreadthumbs.php?APUB=wct&ADATE=2009-01-14&AGALLERY=obama

Our gay/lesbian rights are held hostage by the un-holy alliance between religion and civil law.

Our inherent birth rights are ours throughout our lives and not an optional feel-good action to be granted or withheld at the discretion of a political poo-bah when he/she thinks it will pull votes from one demographic or another.

Our civil rights are not a red flag to wave at rabid fundamentalist believers who are as sheep-like as their leaders are adept at herding.

Our rights are the same as those enjoyed by the rest of America's population and our gender attraction should be irrelevant to that recognition.

I would suggest that Obama, through his mouthpiece Gibbs, is wrestling with his religious views when he can't seem to give a, pardon the pun, straight answer about same-gender marriage.

Obama speaks of the "traditional" image of marriage as being between one man and one woman, but that "tradition" also meant the couple were of the same skin color. Wasn't the traditional image of an American president that of a white man? Wasn't the traditional image of the Speaker of the House that of a white man? Wasn't the image of a state governor that of a white man?

But on second thought, Obama IS giving a straight answer, that is a straight answer rooted in the ignorance of his upbringing and failure to move with the reasonable information that proves we gays and lesbians are productive taxpaying
citizens.

Our president has sworn to uphold the Constitution that includes the 14th Amendment ( http://tinyurl.com/y9lp75a ) which covers my civil rights as a native born citizen as well as the First Amendment's clear separation of church and state
( http://tinyurl.com/6as4v ) .

If this man, who was touted as a constitutional scholar during his first campaign for president, can equivocate on my rights as a citizen, I will certainly use my vote in 2012 in a way that clearly denies him a second term.

Here's a you-tube clip of the attempt by spokesperson Gibbs to call off questioning about Obama's intentions concerning gay/lesbian equality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT2KMjTRHsE

clip -- But Obama’s position since has been that marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman. Still, the president has suggested his position could “evolve” on the matter and said last month he’s “wrestling” with the idea of marriage rights for gay couples.

“Like a lot of people, I’m wrestling with this,” Obama said in an interview last month with The Advocate. “I’ve wrestled with the fact that marriage traditionally has had a different connotation. But I also have a lot of very close friends who are married gay or lesbian couples.”

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/01/24/gibbs-nearly-ends-news-conference-over-marriage-questions/

http://tinyurl.com/4oml7zg

Thanks to Rex Wockner, indie journalist, for the links.

White House Spokesperson Gibbs Trys to Stifle Questions about Obama's Marriage Question

2011-01-24T21:09:00.002-06:00

Funny, isn't it, how politicians can talk on and on about almost any topic, except when it comes to the civil rights of America's gay and lesbian taxpayers, especially when it the topic is same-gender marriage.

Our rights are held hostage by the un-holy alliance between religion and civil law.

Our inherent birth rights are ours throughout our lives and not an optional feel-good action to be granted or withheld at the discretion of a political poo-bah when he/she thinks it will pull votes from one demographic or another.

Our civil rights are not a red flag to wave at rabid fundamentalist believers who are as sheep-like as their leaders are adept at herding.

Our rights are the same as those enjoyed by the rest of America's population and our gender attraction should be irrelevant to that recognition.

I would suggest that Obama, through his mouthpiece Gibbs, is wrestling with his religious views when he can't seem to give a, pardon the pun, straight answer about same-gender marriage.

Obama speaks of the "traditional" image of marriage as being between one man and one woman, but that "tradition" also meant the couple were of the same skin color. Wasn't the traditional image of an American president that of a white man? Wasn't the traditional image of the Speaker of the House that of a white man? Wasn't the image of a state governor that of a white man?

But on second thought, Obama IS giving a straight answer, that is a straight answer rooted in the ignorance of his upbringing and failure to move with the reasonable information that proves we gays and lesbians are productive taxpaying
citizens.

Our president has sworn to uphold the Constitution that includes the 14th Amendment ( http://tinyurl.com/y9lp75a ) which covers my civil rights as a native born citizen as well as the First Amendment's clear separation of church and state
( http://tinyurl.com/6as4v ) .

If this man, who was touted as a constitutional scholar during his first campaign for president, can equivocate on my rights as a citizen, I will certainly use my vote in 2012 in a way that clearly denies him a second term.

Here's a you-tube clip of the attempt by spokesperson Gibbs to call off questioning about Obama's intentions concerning gay/lesbian equality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT2KMjTRHsE

clip -- But Obama’s position since has been that marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman. Still, the president has suggested his position could “evolve” on the matter and said last month he’s “wrestling” with the idea of marriage rights for gay couples.

“Like a lot of people, I’m wrestling with this,” Obama said in an interview last month with The Advocate. “I’ve wrestled with the fact that marriage traditionally has had a different connotation. But I also have a lot of very close friends who are married gay or lesbian couples.”

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2011/01/24/gibbs-nearly-ends-news-conference-over-marriage-questions/

http://tinyurl.com/4oml7zg

Thanks to Rex Wockner, indie journalist, for the links.

Oklahoma's First Mother Tells Lie in Inaugural Address

2011-01-11T10:25:00.004-06:00

Mrs. Mary Fallin was sworn in as governor of Oklahoma on Monday, January 10, 2011.

As past 5th congressional district representative for four years, Mrs. Fallin was unemployed from January 5 when the new congress was sworn in until January 10.

So eager to begin her next government job she couldn't wait to get to her gubernatorial office, but instead began telling lies on the south steps of the Capitol building immediately after taking her hand off the bible.

I thought someone of her impeccable moral values would have had a burned hand from placing it on a bible knowing she was going to be telling a bold-faced lie in her maiden speech so soon after taking an oath supposedly vouchsafed by her god.

I respectfully refer to Mrs. Fallin as Oklahoma's First Mother because during her campaign she made the statement that being a mother made her the better choice of candidate over Lt. Governor Jari Askins, her Democratic opponent.

Read the complete story at The Lost Ogle website where this story began:
http://www.thelostogle.com/2011/01/11/the-one-where-governor-mary-fallin-steals-a-story-from-public-radio/

or http://tinyurl.com/4lm7jov

clip-- In the speech, Governor Mary talked about some of the things she claimed to learn from her visit with Mr. Vezey. Some of it she even recalled in “vivid detail.” Here’s the text from Governor Fallin’s address:

Years ago, I had the opportunity to meet a man named Ed Vesey [sic] and hear his story. Ed is believed to be the last person living who was aboard the USS Oklahoma during the attack on Pearl Harbor. And I’ve been thinking a lot about something he once told me.

further clip--

First of all, we have learned through the Ogle Mole Network that Mr. Vezey claims that the only time he’s ever spoken about some of the specifics of his story – specifics that Mary Fallin specifically recalled in “vivid detail” from her speech – occurred when he was interviewed by KOSU…a few weeks ago…by reporter Gail Banzet.

If that’s true, do you know what it means?

Mary Fallin – Yes, that Mary Fallin – appears to be stealing stories from National Public Radio and then passing them off as her own. Let me repeat, Mary Fallin appears to be stealing stories from National Public Radio and then passing them off as her own.

final clip--

Also, maybe the next time Mary sees or hears of a news story on the radio, television or in print, she’ll just cite the story instead of fabricating a personal connection to it. For example, instead of saying “Years ago, I had the opportunity to meet a man named Ed Vezey and hear his story,” instead say, “Last week, I learned about a man named Ed Vezey on the local radio.”

Gays & Lesbians Can be Killers, Too

2010-12-26T12:23:00.003-06:00

(Oklahoma City) Cindy Sheehan, well known peace activist and political candidate, who had a son killed in the Bu$h Junta's invasion of Iraq, has written an article reflecting on the recent commencement of the process to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), the 1993 policy signed by President Bill Clinton to discriminate against gays and lesbians in the American military and now repealed by Congress and President Obama this month.

In my view Sheehan is squarely on the mark as she points out there is no equivalency in acknowledging the civil rights of minorities as a useful mission of the military.

Any country's primary use of its military resources is about learning to kill effectively on command. From the lowest rookie recruit in the kitchen/laundry support services to the highest commander in combat to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the military's job is about destruction of lives and property without second thought or reflection beforehand when the boot meets the ground, the finger meets the trigger, where the eye focuses on the cross-hairs, at the last link in the chain of command.

All the face time that news commentators such as Rachel Maddow have given to the gays/lesbians on the news shows has distracted us from the job those kicked out were doing.

Concerning two of the most prominent faces in the DADT separations, Fahrenback was/wants to continue to be a F-15E Strike Eagle pilot. Choi is/wants to continue as a translator but also lead men in combat as an infantry platoon leader.

The removal of DADT is an improvement for those wishing to live in the military occupation, but I do not feel proud for myself.

I don't feel comfortable about our equality movement having our birthright recognized by bringing death and violence to innocent people through the actions of legally openly serving gay men and women in any military, regardless of country.

Gay men and women have been serving for centuries in military occupations, a historical fact even acknowledged by President Obama in his DADT-repeal signing remarks. We've been waving the flag and participating in a pseudo-Norman Rockwell parade painting through the generations during which time we were still made a fecal target.

Spare me the observation that gays in the military can be used to disprove the stereotype of gay men having no courage, that manliness knows no sexual orientation. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) knows no orientation either.

----------------------

Don't Go, Don't Kill!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27118.htm

The repeal of don't ask, don't Tell for gays in the US military is not a positive step for equality, activist says.

By Cindy Sheehan

December 23, 2010 "Al-Jazeera" - -The recent repeal of the US military policy of "Donâ€™t ask, donâ€™t tell" is far from being the human rights advancement some are touting it to be. I find it intellectually dishonest, in fact, illogical on any level to associate human rights with any military, let alone one that is currently dehumanizing two populations as well as numerous other victims of it's clandestine "security" policies.

Don't Go, Don't Kill

2010-12-24T13:58:00.000-06:00

The repeal of don't ask, don't tell

By Cindy Sheehan

The US military is not a human rights organisation and nowhere near a healthy
place to earn a living or raise a family.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27118.htm

DADT: With all Deliberate Speed

2010-12-21T22:04:00.005-06:00

When you keep hitting your head against the wall, it's the head that breaks.

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Are America's gay and lesbian service members better off with DADT now on the way to the trash can of prejudice? Are gays and lesbians in civilian life better off without DADT on the books? I've been asking myself that question since the vote. Since I can't say absolutely yes, it has to mean a qualified no.

I've never been in the armed forces nor do I ever want to be. I have no experience to draw on in regard to living in a regimented structure or abiding by a detailed chain of command. I know several gay men who are veterans of military service and have been honorably discharged because they wanted to do other things with their futures and not because of any infraction of the military codes of acceptable behavior.

I can only conjecture that the open acceptance of gay/lesbian service members should lay to rest, at least among those straights who are not incontrovertibly flat-earth thinkers, the stereotype of a gay man or woman as undependable, flighty, irresponsible, somehow second-rate mentally and physically.

Remember, there have always been gay and lesbian citizens in the American military, acknowledged or not.

Though not all service members are in combat units, can anyone really think that those gay men who have chosen to take the training that reverses all normal civil behavior be unable to kill when required by orders or mission? How can the stereotype of limp-wristed fruits hold up against the evidence of deeds and the awarding of medals?

Indeed, that's why homo-acceptance is so worrisome to the flat-earthers--when prejudice meets reality, they lose their footing and slide on the suddenly made-round earth.

In the civilian mode of living, I also conjecture that the repeal of DADT will also lead to the repeal of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) and the passage of ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) for the same reasons of prejudice meeting reality.

When you keep hitting your head against the wall, it's the the head that breaks.

Dr. M.L. King is quoted as saying, “It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.”

I think this quote can apply to gays/lesbians in the American Armed Forces and civilian life. Homo-hatred isn't erased by the passage of laws any more than racism went extinct with the passage of the 1964 civil rights and 1965 voting rights acts or the 1954 Supreme Court opinion of Brown v. Board of Education that integrated public schools.

Racism is in play right now to a degree, I think, unseen since the mid-1950s to early 1960s. The racism-that-dare-not-speak-it's-name is due to the election of a bi-racial man as president. The historian Robert Graves wrote a novel of Roman empire days and he has the Emperor Claudius saying at his death, a man supposed to have been progressive for his era, "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out," referring to the wars he expected would develop without his more peaceful point-of-view to guide the politics of his time.

Even after the presidential signing of the bill the legal repeal of DADT doesn't go into effect until the Pentagon and the president have certified that procedures and policies have been implemented that allows for the smooth transition of gay/lesbian openness in the military. And then there is a 60-day "cooling-off period." Can this cooling-off period be a resurgence of a phrase from another important civil rights issue in the 1950s?

Even the integration decision of Brown in 1954 required a second opinion in 1955 clarifying just how fast the implementation of the 1954 decision was to occur. The nine wise men in black wrote "with all deliberate speed." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education )

It took eleven years for passage of the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Hate Crimes Act, named after two men who were killed in particularly heinous ways (one because he was gay, the other because he was black) during which time forty-one states passed anti-gay marriage amendments or statutes. Only five states recognize our civil right to marry the person of our choice, with two states facing possible reversal of our equality: California and New Hampshire.

Perhaps the passage of time will bring our equality into focus even as the passage of laws are used to delay "with all deliberate speed" the recognition of our birthright of equality in America.

Even if Wikileaks is offline Manchester Guardian in England has this database

2010-12-05T20:48:00.000-06:00

Even if Wikileaks is offline, or if you have difficulty accessing the leaked files on Wikileaks, the Manchester Guardian in England has this database to enable browsing of the cables and other documents so far released by country, subject, or persons:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-wikileaks

or http://tinyurl.com/3xatpww

Surviving Partner Of Missouri State Trooper Killed On Duty Challenges Discriminatory Benefits Policy

2010-12-04T10:37:00.000-06:00

Courtesy of Rex Wockner, indie journalist, google him....

Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:02:03 -0500
From: ACLU MEDIA

Surviving Partner Of Missouri State Trooper Killed On Duty Challenges Discriminatory Benefits Policy

Same-Sex Couples Excluded From Receiving Survivor Benefits

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 2, 2010
CONTACT:
Robyn Shepherd, ACLU National, (212) 519-7829 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Debbie Read, ACLU of Eastern Missouri, (314) 652-3114; debbie@aclu-em.org

JEFFERSON CITY, MO - The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri and the ACLU of Kansas & Western Missouri filed a lawsuit today on behalf of Kelly Glossip, whose partner, Dennis Engelhard, was a state trooper killed in the line of duty while responding to an accident on Christmas Day of last year. Missouri offers survivor benefits to spouses of state troopers who are killed in the line of duty, but excludes committed same-sex partners from receiving those benefits. Glossip is seeking the same survivor benefits provided to opposite-sex partners.

"Dennis and I loved each other and lived in a committed relationship for 15 years. We depended on each other emotionally and financially in our life together like any other committed couple. We exchanged rings and would have married in Missouri if the state didn't exclude us from marriage," said Glossip. "I'm just seeking the same financial protections the state provides to heterosexual couples. It is hard enough coping with the grief of losing Dennis. It is even more painful to have the state treat Dennis and me as though we were total strangers."

Spouses of Missouri State Highway Patrol employees are entitled to an annuity of 50 percent of the employee's average salary if the employee is killed on duty. Since Engelhard's death, Glossip has struggled with paying the mortgage on the home they both owned. While Glossip is not challenging the definition of marriage under Missouri law, he is challenging the benefits policy as a violation of his rights under the Missouri Constitution.

"Dennis and Kelly were a family in every sense of the word," said John Knight, staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Project. "They owned a home together, shared cars and bank accounts, and Dennis even helped Kelly care for his child from a former marriage. They vowed to take care of each other in good times and in bad. As a matter of basic fairness, Kelly should be entitled to the same security as other bereaved partners of troopers killed in the line of duty."

Engelhard was struck by a vehicle while responding to an accident on Christmas Day, 2009. Following his death, the governor ordered all U.S. and Missouri flags to be flown at half-staff. Kelly attended a ceremony in Washington, D.C. in May 2010 commemorating the loss of police officers nationwide, and was recognized with a medallion as Engelhard's surviving partner.

"Kelly is merely seeking the same treatment he would have received if his partner had been a woman, rather than a man," said Anthony Rothert, Legal Director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. "Kelly may not have been able to marry the person of his choice under Missouri state law, but he is still entitled to equal protection and the fundamental right to the family relationship he formed with Dennis Engelhard. He is seeking the same dignity and security for his family that is granted to other state troopers' families."

Attorneys on the case include Rothert and Grant R. Doty of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, Stephen Douglas Bonney of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri, Knight and Joshua Block of the ACLU LGBT Project and Roger K. Heidenreich of SNR Denton.

For more information on this case, including a video, please visit: www.aclu.org/glossip

Sally Kern's Bethany Oklahoma District going to the Dogs

2010-12-02T11:03:00.001-06:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Recently re-elected GOPer Rep. Sally Kern, Oklahoma's leading, and one of America's outstanding homo-haters, has some alleged sexual philanderings going on among her constituents that she won't find in her bible. I wonder if the participants selected gender-appropriate partners?

She's alleged to have remarked some five years ago that inter-animal sex is OK if it's opposite gendered.

Of course, she was talking about the fantasy of sex when kissing a frog, not an actual physical puckering up to an amphibian.

But we all know Ms. Kern gets excited when talking about sex and often overstates her enthusiasm about the topic of genitals, human or other-specied, when questioned about it.

From a 2005 interview of Kern by Michelangelo Signorile, he posits an example of a fairy tale character coming back to life when kissed by another fairy tale character. Odd that Kern didn't react to an obvious reference to a common religious story of a god-like figure rising from the dead, and indeed the centerpiece of her own blood-driven religious experiences. I guess rising from the dead isn't in Kern's sexual fantasy playbook.

Signorile interview--
http://tinyurl.com/35vnvyl

Dallas Voice story--
http://tinyurl.com/2vtybnz

Oklahoman story--
http://tinyurl.com/34gv25m

You can view Kern's latest attempt to appear more kindly and user-friendly here:
http://www.okhouse.gov/committees/member.aspx?memberid=87

The 33 Strategies of War & Our country has been robbed

2010-11-25T14:40:00.002-06:00

The 33 Strategies of War & Our country has been robbed

clip -- In The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene calls this “The Guerrilla-War-Of-The-Mind Strategy.”

http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/w/page/14422706/The-33-Strategies-of-War

“What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetitions of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must consciously wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment. Be ruthless on yourself; do not repeat the same tired methods.”

http://pacificfreepress.com/news/1/7435-death-watch-democracy-and-the-two-party-oligarch.html

clip -- Our country has been robbed. Our future prospects are bleak. Trillions of dollars have been looted from the economy and no one in our government is holding the thieves accountable - Obama is not, the Democrats are not and the Republicans are not. They are all pivotal accomplices in the continued rape of our country. So stop deluding yourself into believing that only the opposing party is to blame. Focusing on one party as the source of our problems is journalistically lazy and intellectually naïve. Dig deeper! Follow the money. Focus on the people who fund both parties.

Insouciant Americans

2010-11-25T10:47:00.000-06:00

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11222010.html
Blinding Hypocrisy
Insouciant Americans
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

In a recent column, â€œThe Stench of American Hypocrisy,â€� I noted that US public officials and media are on their high horse about the rule of law in Burma while the rule of law collapses unremarked in the US. Americans enjoy beating up other peoples for American sins. Indeed, hypocrisy has become the defining characteristic of the United States.

Hypocrisy in America is now so commonplace it is no longer noticed. Consider the pro-football star Michael Vick. In a recent game Vick scored 6 touchdowns, totally dominating the playing field. His performance brought new heights of adulation, causing National Public Radio to wonder if the sports public shouldnâ€™t retain a tougher attitude toward a dog torturer who spent 1.5 years in prison for holding dog fights.

complete at: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11222010.html

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

In the Pouch of the Kangaroo

2010-10-28T16:03:00.003-05:00

photo from: http://www.animalpictures1.com

(OKLAHOMA CITY) On Tuesday, November 2, voters in HD 85 in northwest OKC (vicinity of Lake Hefner, http://tinyurl.com/2fc3kvz) will for the first time have three candidates to choose from.

I'll be voting for Ed Shadid who's on the ballot as an Independent candidate with the endorsement of the Oklahoma Green Party. As you'll read below, Shadid represents for me a candidate with the platform I wish more Oklahoma Democratic candidates would promote.

His two opponents are David Dank, GOPer, and Gail Vines, pseudo-Democrat.

Continuing the 16-year dynasty started by the term-limited GOPer Odelia Dank is her husband, the incumbent David Dank.

Challenging in more ways than one in the Democratic column is Gail Vines, currently an OKC school board member, who only switched from Independent to Democrat when she first ran for school board in 2005.

Ed Shadid is unequivocally in favor of GLBT anti-discrimination laws for which I have a vested interest.
You can view the candidate questionnaire from OGLPC (Oklahoma Gay & Lesbian Caucus) at http://www.oglpc.com .

Another favorite topic of mine is reproductive freedom. Ed Shadid wants to repeal the recently passed (and court challenged) Oklahoma law requiring the invasive, unnecessary, forced ultrasound examination of pregnant women and the accompanying right of doctors to lie to their patients if the doctor thinks the patient is seeking an abortion.

Quoting from a two-page paid advertisement in the Oklahoma Gazette (October 27) Ed Shadid writes:

"Mr. Dank has supported and voted for the State to be able to arrest scientists who participate in embryonic stem cell research. Mr. Dank would argue and has voted for the ability of the state to force a physician to perform medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds on women seeking an abortion after having been raped or having been the victim of incest. Mr. Dank has voted for physicians to be protected by the State if they lie to parents about the results of birth defects in order to prevent an abortion even if the condition were to result in excruciating suffering and guaranteed death of the newborn. Mr. Dank has worked towards using the power of the state to interfere with the patient-physician relationship in profound ways the Obama reforms do not come close to emulating."

In her time on the OKC school board, Ms. Vines has twice voted to appeal a court verdict that clearly states the school board wrongly fired a tenured teacher, Mr. Joe Quigley.

Quoting again from Shadid's Gazette ad:

"...Ms. Vines left thousands scratching their heads as she defied Judge Barbara Swinton’s order and voted to fire gay teacher Joe Quigley. Despite both Judge Swinton and now an appellate court condemning the board, Ms Vines and the rest of the school board have now announced that they are going to spend even more of the taxpayers’ money (potentially several hundred thousands of dollars) appealing the decision to the [Oklahoma] Supreme Court."

In the kangaroo court atmosphere that was palpable during the first school board hearing, Ms. Vines voted to abstain from firing Mr. Joe Quigley. When I asked her why she abstained, she said, "I didn't know enough about the case."

What kind of school board representative can Vines be when she didn't do her own homework prior to a very important vote on the possible dismissal of a tenured and respected teacher? Now she's voted affirmatively twice to an issue to which she admitted she knew too little about.

I'd say she was in the pouch of the kangaroo court of the OKC school board.

Ed Shadid is a committed progressive who's put his money, time, and career where his mouth is.

If you've got a shred of gay/lesbian self-respect for yourself or for others, you'll vote for Ed Shadid this election.

There's more at Shadid's website where you can see the Gazette ad and read more about the scurrilous funding sources of Dank's and Vines's campaigns.

See for yourself at his campaign website, www.voteshadid.org .

This article represents my own views and is not coordinated with any political party or candidate.

Forced Off the Edge of Life's Road

2010-10-14T11:08:00.001-05:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) The gay/straight alliance at the University of Central Oklahoma, a medium size state school in Edmond, OK, a bedroom town nearly contiguous with Oklahoma City, had a combination vigil/coming out day event this past Tuesday, October 12, recognizing the recent suicide of Zack Harrington and National Coming Out Day. It was held in a large public park in Edmond.

I couldn't stay for all of it but what I did see was a pretty good demonstration of being comfortable with being gay or lesbian. One of the leaders said the number was double over last year. I'd say about 70 people were there, mostly students in their early 20s, with some teenagers and older adults in the mix.

I've known I was gay, though I didn't know the word, since 4th or 5th grade of elementary school. The dictionary I used talked about "self-pollution". What a scream. I was afraid it would somehow show up when I had to go to the doctor for a required physical.

We put way too much emphasis on gender presentation and role playing when kids are too immature to understand their bodies and psychological needs. I think we should look at human development the same way we look at other living organisms that morph from one stage to another with radically different bodies. The outward shape of our human bodies doesn't change so much, but the inner shape of our minds sure does--or they SHOULD change--doffing the myths and twisted beliefs we're fed as children as we develop from our own experiences.

Several of the public speakers at the Norman City Council meeting mentioned religious belief in their objection to the GLBT history month proclamation, making another example of the ignorance many people have about the separation of religious views and civil policies under the First Amendment. This was the meeting attended by Zack Harrington and apparently forced him off the edge of life's road.

Civil rights are the guaranteed benefits of being a citizen of this country, they are not subject to examination by a review panel to test if citizens are "worthy". Civil rights are a birth right, inherent in the social contract between citizen and government.

Though I am a believer in the right of self-deliverance in the face of inescapable terminal illness, I'm nearly speechless and wordless in the face of the suicides caused by the vehement, venomous vocabulary of religious, flat-earth thinking spewed in public meetings and the media.

I'm reduced to involuntary head-shaking when trying to understand how the insidious poison of religion infiltrates young minds and dissolves the normal urge to live.

Religion has always been the mental fog in the road of human progress, from Galileo and Copernicus to stem-cell research to the legal recognition of citizens without regard for their sexual orientation.

It would appear that until more of us recognize the futility of religion, the false authority and violence it visits on innocent people, we'll see more GLBT suicides as roadkill on the human highway.

The link below provides a video of the ill-fated Norman, Oklahoma city council meeting.

Oklahoma's Zach Harrington, 19, Kills Himself After Hateful Town Meeting

http://www.queerty.com/suicide-oklahomas-zach-harrington-19-kills-himself-after-hateful-town-meeting-20101010/
or http://tinyurl.com/2chqvkt

"Think for yourself and let others do the same."

2010-09-26T15:24:00.002-05:00

"Think for yourself and let others do the same."

This week is Banned Books Week, September 25 through October 2, sponsored by the American Library Association.

Frequently, books dealing with GLBTs, race, religion, and other minority issues at age-appropriate levels, are targeted by "well-meaning" parents and other mis-informed people.

I've worked in a public library for 17 years and I have yet to see a single book jump off the a shelf or table and force itself on anyone, either an adult or child. All books have to be picked up as they have no powers to defy gravity. But then gravity is only a "theory" like the "theory" of evolution so perhaps the book objectors find "reality" in the power of their imagination.

Again though, books are supposed to spur imagination as the ideas on the pages are passed around between the covers. So why do book objectors think other readers should be limited to the confines of a strait-jacketed mind?

All any reader has to do when holding a book with which he/she disagrees is really pretty simple. It's seemingly beyond their immediate comprehension so let me tell you the secret and ask you to pass it on: put the book down and walk away.

Why do the objectors feel the rest of us are interested in their reading level or educational taste? If I want to know I'll ask.

One of this year's Banned Books slogans is:

"Think for yourself and let others do the same."

Here are two links for your own imagination:

"Penguins are indisputably cute. And a children's book about such inoffensive animals could hardly be expected to trigger a nationwide controversy. But then came "And Tango Makes Three" and a heated debate was fired up.--"

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52959

More from American Library Association--

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

Dawkins: "Ratzinger is an enemy of humanity!"

2010-09-20T19:45:00.001-05:00

Richard Dawkins' Speech at Protest the Pope March

video of abbreviated speech due to time constraints at the event http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_0kFU7IfPM&feature=related

or http://tinyurl.com/378mcwa

However, here is a link to the complete text of Dr. Dawkins's speech.

http://richarddawkins.net/articles/521113-ratzinger-is-an-enemy-of-humanity

or http://tinyurl.com/2fkat5d

Another Misdirection of Liberal Energy

2010-09-19T21:24:00.003-05:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Ah, again we liberals let the fundies of America push us into a confrontation over religion to demonstrate to the Joe Six-Packs and Suzie Kitchens who can't name the five freedoms of the First Amendment that somehow defending Muslims is destroying America and giving comfort to the enemies of our American military.

The core issue is that the use of fiction couched as "truth" is being used to misdirect our progressive energy.

The American fundie movement works, lives, and breathes for division and they are usually successful. Just look at how many fundamentalist denominations there are just in America.

Have the liberals, of which I'm one, taken the time to investigate how many commercial, capitalist stores, shops, and offices are already being planned for this so-called WTC sacred site?

If the WTC property were truly considered a sacred site it would now, after nine years, be a park with tasteful monuments, paths, flower beds, and docents offering tasteful, non-offending guided tours in soft voices, much as the Alamo is now exhibited in Texas. Liberals have allowed themselves to be used by those who have no need for the First Amendment and would squash basic freedoms like unwanted vermon.

Leftie religionists tell us to read the Koran and see for ourselves what a peaceful religion it is.

Okay, let's look. The following quotes are taken from the website "The Religion of Peace" ( http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/023-violence.htm ).

Quran (8:12) - "I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them"

How's this one sound to those progressive Christians who defend Islam as a religion of peace:

Quran (9:30) - "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah; and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah; these are the words of their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before; may Allah destroy them; how they are turned away!"

Had enough?

Now it's the turn of the bible, the same "good news" used by progressives and regressives of the Christian kind.

"The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." (Psalms 58:10)

( http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/darkbible3.htm#raping-and-killing )

And one more for balance.

"And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel. And the LORD said unto Moses, 'Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel.' (Numbers 25:3-4)

( http://www.nobeliefs.com/DarkBible/darkbible3.htm#decapitate-them )

Lest I be accused of using bible/koran excerpts selectively, I say this: If it's permissible for Christians to shore up their respective beliefs by using the bible, then I certainly am able to use the same book to point out the discrepancies of both side's arguments using their own verbal ammunition.

What is taken to be a liberal position among progressives is actually the same kind of selective reasoning used by the regressives--which is to say using a book of fiction does nothing to strengthen an argument.

One either believes in a super-natural force that operates in the acts of human beings or one doesn't.

With the dust-up over the Koran BBQ that was planned by Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida, we have another misdirection of the liberal need to defend those who do not see that this was a purposely created event for anti-social behavior to be used.

None the less, all Christians believe in the same god, correct? The liturgies, ceremonies, POVs are different, but it's the same middle-eastern god as the Muslims and Jews believe in.

My point is that in this country under the Constitution, nominally, we have the First Amendment's first clause about freedom of religion, only later do speech and the press get mentioned.

Therefore, progressive religionists MUST honor the need for the fundamentalists to act out their own POV even as the fundies would deny to progressives, absolutely, the separation of church and state that I think most progressives would agree is essential to a free society as outlined in the Constitution.

Religion has painted the fundamentalist and the progressive religionists in opposite corners of the box of their beliefs. Even as the two Christian factions worship the same god there can be little chance of reconciliation. The left is giving all the benefit of the doubt to the right even as the right is taking more and more of the political pie as they preach salvation in the most abhorrent and bloodcurdling way.

Eventually, the religious left must understand there is no compromising with the right.

Arguing with those who think book-BBQs are the productive thing to do will only result in the left getting divided among itself. That's why I'm of the opinion that as long as they're burning their own property let fundies burn what they wish.

Those Muslims who are outraged are probably of the same ilk as the Christian burners.

The throngs of Muslims who threaten to act with violence or threats only prove the assertion that it's a primitive, bloodthirsty religion, less sophisticated than their more insidious leaders who, just like in any warfare action, are safely behind the front lines, not so different from the Christian regressives..

Progressives are cowed with threats or the accomplishemt of religious murder such as that directed at Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, Kurt Westergaard (Dutch cartoonist), Ayaan Hirsi Ali (former Dutch legislator) and ridiculously, Matt Stone and Trey Parker (creators of "South Park").

I'm not offended by the idea of the koran BBQ since it was Jones's own books he wanted to burn. The "horror" of book burning is not convincing for me unless the book has great artistic/historical value as an antique object. Burning a book in past centuries had the intended effect of wiping out the thoughts and ideas in the book due to the scarcity and expense of hand copying or printing. But to be "outraged" now is a holdover from what many of us were taught in school to associate with repressive regimes such as the Nazis, Krystallnacht, Stalin, etc.

Book burning is a welcome substitute for burning people at the stake, where thoughts and ideas were really wiped out for all time.

Unless progressives want to help initiate a new Dark Age, we'd be wise to stop using religion as if it were a legitimate peaceful weapon of thought and action.

Is America Going to be the New Middle East?

2010-09-09T20:47:00.001-05:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) History is full coincidences and ships that pass in the night.

To whit:

---With the ridiculous grandstanding of a puny,weak-minded ego-centric bible-pounder from Florida who gets a call from the US Defense Secretary urging him to call off his book-BBQ,

---to a president and secretary of state who mess their pants trying to assuage the foreign Muslims to please don't riot, please don't, we have a pesky Constitution that we have to sort of abide by,

---to well-intentioned religious progressives who have been blind-sided by the mushroom-cloud of far right fundamentalism, be it of the blood-soaked Jesus variety or the dishdasha-clad, bearded tribal kind, both descended from the legendary Abraham,

I have to say how disgusting it is to see and hear formerly principled people lowering themselves to the hairsplitting minutiae of Old Testament prophets of the ancient "Holy Land of Palestine and Judea".

Is America is now going to become the new Middle East?

As the calendar would have it, here's an item from the time capsule of American political history that could almost be as valid today as it was 50 years. Click on the link to hear and read candidate John Kennedy's definitive speech on the separation of church and state. Just substitute "Catholic", and "Protestant" with the words "Christian" and "Islam".

http://okcamericansunited.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-sept.html

Handicapping the Prop 8 Appeal: A Photo Finish Horse Race

2010-09-04T21:48:00.002-05:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) There has been much constructive talk, as well as arm-chair quarter-back style blogging and blathering in conjunction with California's Prop 8 trial (Perry v. Schwarzenegger, http://tinyurl.com/2utbpsd ) whether this is a good time for Ted Olson and David Boies, working for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (http://www.equalrightsfoundation.org/ ), to bring to the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) a case that could, if lost, set a precedent that would allow the religious right's discriminatory dogma to remain on the statute books as settled law. These proscriptions would be enforced despite the First Amendment's first clause that denies a legal haven for any particular religious belief.

Some of the squeamishness in presenting a same-gender marriage case to SCOTUS rotates around the center of the US Supreme Court's current composition, namely Justice Anthony Kennedy, well known as the "swing vote" in many of the single vote majority decisions of this highest court in America. SCOTUS is currently balanced with four justices each generally voting liberal or conservative with Justice Kennedy being the pivot. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy )

Here is a golden nugget of gay equality history from Justice Kennedy's prior time on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the position he held prior to his appointment to SCOTUS.

"LeBlanc requested a restraining order in federal court, and no less than now-Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was one of the two Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges who, while not ruling the ban itself was wrong [gays serving openly in the US military], surprisingly ordered the Marines either give him an honorable discharge or retain him until his case could go to trial. They chose the former." ( http://gay.americablog.com/ , http://tinyurl.com/23ugk69 )

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in the case Romer v. Evans, 6-3, that turned back the Colorado voter-passed Constitutional Amendment 2 that was the mother of anti-gay discrimination bills.

Colorado's Amendment 2 was even more broad than the subsequent marriage amendments in that it prevented any governing body in the state to offer legal protection to gay/lesbian citizens.

Again in a major victory for gay/lesbian equality, Justice Kennedy delivered the majority opinion, 6-3, in the Lawrence v. Texas case striking down sodomy laws that criminalized private, non-commercial, sexual activity between consenting adults.

Contrary to what flat-earth groups such as Focus on the Family or National Organization for Marriage want their followers to believe, having a voter-passed amendment added to any state's Constitution or civil code can and has been overturned by a state or federal supreme court.

This principle of justice in the American legal system is vital to continued progress for recognition of gay/lesbian citizenship. Civil rights as outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights can not be used as prizes in a majority voter raffle aimed at installing any particular religious or social view. Citizenship with its attendant responsibilities, obligations, and benefits should not be subject to partisan popularity.

As Judge Walker wrote in his unprecedented ruling overturning California's Prop 8 gay discrimination amendment, "In the absence of a rational basis, what remains of proponents’ case is an inference, amply supported by evidence in the record, that Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples. Whether that belief is based on moral disapproval of homosexuality, animus towards gays and lesbians or simply a belief that a relationship between a man and a woman is inherently better than a relationship between two men or two women, this belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate." (p. 132, http://tinyurl.com/2utbpsd )

Just as racists are at perfect liberty to retain their moral disapproval of inter-racial marriage, just as die-hard religious fundamentalists can retain their belief that a particular denomination should write laws of the country, moral disapproval of gays and lesbians, as well as the content of our private lives, can continue to occupy their every waking moment as it has in the past.

The only thing that will change with the full recognition of gay/lesbian citizenship will be the diminution of diversity-deprived, sexually immature adults to impose their private thoughts and neuroses on the rest of the country.

Whether Justice Kennedy will be the deciding vote remains to be seen. His judicial philosophy indicates he adheres to precedent. His two opinions recognizing our gay/lesbian equality are good indicators of how he might vote in the inevitable appeal of Prop 8.

However, the health of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not strong. Considering the outcome of the November, 2010 elections, the majority party of the Senate will be vital to the appointment of a successor to Ginsburg. In the two and-a-half years of the Obama Administration, the President has shown himself not able to muster the "fire in the belly" needed to press for his court appointees. ( http://tinyurl.com/29xbhr4 )

The two newest justices appointed by Obama, Sotomayor and Kagan, have not been on the Court long enough to have a reasonable record of voting to draw conclusions. Court appointees don't always adhere to the expectations of the appointing president, Justice David Souter being a recent example. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Souter )

I strongly think the Prop 8 appeal will be decided not so much on the strong argument presented by Olson and Boies as much as on the accidents of health and political expediency. In other words, a real race to the finish.

Further reading--

You can read more about Colorado's Amendment 2 (Romer v. Evans) here: general information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romer_v._Evans and the SCOTUS decision http://tinyurl.com/24xa2oc

You can read about the overturning sodomy laws (Lawrence v. Texas) here: general information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas and the SCOTUS decision http://tinyurl.com/mwu4ry

Homo-Happy-iens Will Care for Our Own Emotions

2010-08-08T16:04:00.003-05:00

illustration courtesy of http://tinyurl.com/ms9kjg

Religion and Sex Best Conducted by Consenting Adults in Private

(OKLAHOMA CITY) From the smallest cross-roads-one-stop-light town to the largest state in the American Union, religion has stood in the municipal-legislative door to stop the recognition of gay/lesbian civil rights.

Ten countries now recognize and support same-gender marriage. They are Argentina, Canada, Portugal, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and South Africa, according to the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association, (www.ILGLaw.org). Many of these countries govern their people without the profound religious obeisance that interferes with the passage of any pro-gay/lesbian law, ordinance, or policy in the United States, regardless of the level of governance.

Our national myth of being founded on equality is a shell game.

The real root of America's founding was the need for a fundamentalist sect to escape to a region of the world where they could call their own repressive religious shots without the need to compromise with other faith POVs. Eventually other denominations and sects infected even the Puritan tradition.

Some colonies required membership and tithing towards particular churches even if the citizen choose not to attend services.

Rhode Island was the first colony to recognize religious freedom of conscience.

Maryland had a back-and-forth struggle regarding recognitnion of the Catholic and Protestant faiths--each side supressing the other when they had the POLITICAL power to do so.

Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, from 1779 reads:

"[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

The language of the Jefferson's statute clearly alludes to the suppression of freedom of conscience and the coercion of property experienced in many of the Colonies. Jefferson was so proud of this accomplishment that the title is engraved, at his direction, on his grave marker, but NOT the fact he was a president of the United States. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion )

Women are not mentioned in the Constitution and were only recognized as legal voters in 1920 with passage of the nineteenth amendment. African-American slaves and the indigenous Americans were specifically enumerated as 3/5ths of a person. Several American states had educational tests or poll taxes to maintain power over minorities who the majority wanted disenfranchised from voting or removed from any other participation in the governing process.

It's no wonder gays and lesbians are treated as non-entities in much of federal law. Every minority in American history has had to fight tooth-and-nail for legal recognition under the law and our gay/lesbian equality fight is no different.

I think the so-called sacred "institution" of marriage is as much a miasma as the myth of America's founding being based in "equality." There's nothing "sacred" about it. Why do the 50 states allow completely secular marriages with absolutely no mention of religious faith? Those non-religious marriages, using only a state marriage license, are just as valid as the recent marriage of Chelsea Clinton and the spending of an estimated three million dollars.

The emotional hopes and expectations associated with marriage have long been diminished by the actions of the heteros themselves.

My relationship with my partner has lasted 33 years with total commitment toward each other in spite of the failure of our state and federal governments to give us any of the support that hetero-couples receive, in spite of our paying more per centum of taxes than hetero-couples of the same income level.

My partner and I want the same tax and other economic benefits that the heteros are getting. Judge Walker's Prop 8 opinion is the very first major statement that plainly addresses the religiously-bigoted and socially-ignorant prejudices held against gays and lesbians. ( http://tinyurl.com/28jml6s )

Whether it's called marriage or domestic-partner benefits makes no difference to us. I've long said our gay/lesbian equality movement was using the wrong word for America's profound sky-god-believing majority to accept. There's now way too much political, legal, and emotional water under the bridge to recover the separation of church and state argument regarding marriage equality.

We don't need a religious blessing, societal approval, or the neighborhood welcome wagon to make a stop at our door in order to be American citizens.

We need ONLY the judicial and legislative equality of law--that's all, JUST THE LAW!!!

We'll take care of our own private emotional feelings towards one another, thank you very much!

Keep religion confined along with sexual activity--in private--among consenting adults.

Our fierce defender should take the time....

2010-08-07T10:20:00.002-05:00

...to read the court opinion of Judge Vaughn Walker who wrote the clear-eyed California Prop 8 decision.
( https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/ )

As a bi-racial man, and reputed to be intelligent, he should be able to see the parallel between the denial of marriage equality to gays and lesbians and denial of the same marriage right to interracial couples that was in effect prior to Loving v. Virginia, 1967. I'm speaking of Barack Obama.

At one time, the marriage of Obama's parents was illegal in 16 American states and, in addition, he was born in 1961 when such laws were still in effect. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscegenation )

Just as religion and moral disapproval based on racial inheritance was used to keep a certain minority of American citizens from the right of free association, so are these private opinions still being used to keep gay citizens from one of the basic human rights--the right of freely marrying the consenting adult of one's choice.

http://tinyurl.com/36gao78

Haskell's Rascals Pay for Willful Ignorance

2010-07-31T16:24:00.004-05:00

Haskell's Rascals Pay for Willful Ignorance
by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Recently the ACLU of Oklahoma settled with the Haskell County of Oklahoma Board of County Commissioners in the lawsuit brought by a resident of Haskell County in regard to a religious monument engraved with one of the several versions of the list known as the "Ten Commandments."
( http://tinyurl.com/2ater6q with photos )

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Commissioners to pay costs and damages amounting to $199,000.

Most incriminating in the court case based on the endorsement of a particular religion by the monument was testimony made in court and in the local newspapers by then-Commission Chairman Sam Cole: "The good Lord died for me. I can stand for him."

There will soon be another showdown over igneous monuments. Thanks to a majority vote in the Oklahoma legislature on a bill sponsored by GOP Rep. Mike Ritze, who has said many times his family will put up the money, the mistake of substituting one's personal belief for one's civic duty will result in another monument similar to Haskell County's being placed on the north side of the Oklahoma Capitol building.
( http://tinyurl.com/28lg98a )

Arnold Hamilton, editor of the Oklahoma Observer ( www.okobserver.net ) has written that,

"especially in Oklahoma where some lawmakers are obsessed with the notion this is a Christian nation as opposed to a nation of religious freedom. It's difficult to imagine that erection later this year of a similar Ten Commandments monument on the state Capitol's north lawn -- the brainchild of state Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow -- won't be challenged in court." ( http://tinyurl.com/36rt7s6 )

Religious freedom does not mean the majority is allowed to wield their holy writings at will until displaced by some heavenly raffle awarding top place to another mode of worship.

The Tulsa World has a strong op/ed for the separation of religious and civil issues you can read here:
( http://tinyurl.com/2bbnpbn )

Quoting from that article: "Because Congress can't do it, neither can the state or Haskell County. That's covered by the 14th Amendment.

Those willingly choosing delusion over reality don't understand that a civil right such as the First Amendment right of freedom of religion does NOT mean that "the majority rules" when it comes to a civil right guaranteed in the Constitution.

This purpose-driven delusion of the far right also comes into play around the issue of marriage equality for adults of the same gender who are otherwise capable of marrying people of the opposite gender as allowed by the residents's state law.

That right to marry is included in the 14th Amendment and covered as well by several Supreme Court decisions that recognize even the right of imprisoned citizens to marry.

Yes, the majority privately-held religious demographic of the United States is Christian, yet the majority civic-held demographic is the rule of law under a judicial system without favoritism to the detriment of minorities.

It appears to me the religious far right is unable to grasp the meaning of the ten articles of the Bill of Rights just as they can't live by the meaning of their ten commandments, which ever version they choose.

Even their leader said to "Pay unto Caeser what is Caeser's..."

writer's note: This article is composed by me without co-ordination with any political party, social or civic group I might be associated with.

Wikileaks is exposing the Bu$h Junta history that Obama doesn't want to look at.

2010-07-28T21:50:00.002-05:00

Wikileaks is exposing the Bu$h Junta history that Obama doesn't want to look at.

As Julian Assange and Wikileaks.org is in the spotlight for exposing the criminal activities of the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I thought many of you would like to have some more background.

As the Obama Administration continues the war policies of the Bu$h Junta it's important to remember that the grass roots activism represented by Wikileaks can serve as an example for the rest of us as to what role we can play even if at a smaller scale.

Wikileaks is exposing the Bu$h Junta history that Obama doesn't want to look at. These documents are the basis for Obama's need to look forward not backward.

The release of more than 90,000 clandestine documents that Obama claims is not so important and represents old news--even as the Pentagon begins a criminal investigation--shows that governments are afraid of transparency and prefer the Dracula-type darkness to continue the assault on innocent people and human progress.

DemocracyNow.org also has extensive video interviews at this link, http://tinyurl.com/23e7tut ,
including an detailed video interview with Assange himself.

If you care about ending this world war that is dragging to destruction our progressive principals I urge you to learn as much as you can now.

Those who think Obama is a progressive president need to re-think your politics.

Jim Nimmo

No Secrets
Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency.
by Raffi Khatchadourian in New Yorker Magazine

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all#ixzz0v28qiF7n

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all

or http://tinyurl.com/3x526lj

Oklahoma Rape by Sonic Transducer Law gets Blocked

2010-07-20T09:59:00.001-05:00

Oklahoma Rape by Sonic Transducer Law gets Blocked

Paper Chase: Oklahoma court extends bar
against law requiring pre-abortion ultrasounds

Readers,

The article linked below is a good summary of the history of HB 2780, the bill passed earlier this year. It includes a look at a similar bill that was vetoed and upheld in Florida.

Embedded links will direct you to the legal papers and texts of the items discussed.

Every doctor should be protesting this bill as it seems to me the Legislature is trying to practice medicine without a license, intruding on the training and professional prerogatives of licensed physicians.

In addition, no man's civil rights are subjected to any scrutiny in regard to his health care choices when he seeks professional medical advice as women's civil rights are for women with the law now under observation.

Both Houses of the Oklahoma Legislature have a GOPer majority that continually preaches about the need for less government intrusion in the private lives of citizens. Sadly, there were some Democrats who voted for this bill and voted to override the Governor's veto. They should change their political party registration.

But, guess what? Women are citizens too--not chattel, not indentured servants. They pay taxes and they vote.

http://jurist.org/paperchase/2010/07/oklahoma-court-blocks-requiring-pre-abortion-ultrasounds.php

or http://tinyurl.com/2f5vea5

Circulated with no coordination with any political party, social or civic affairs group I might be associated with.

James Nimmo

Hear them roar?

2010-07-11T09:50:00.004-05:00

Hear them roar?
Oklahoma women take on lawmakers

By JANET PEARSON Associate Editor
Published: 6/27/2010

They've finally done it.

After decades of neglecting women's health needs, throwing them in prison in record numbers, meddling in their reproductive decision-making, and giving only lip service to the problems of poverty, education, abuse and violence, lawmakers finally have managed to raise the ire of many Oklahoma women.

Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/article.aspx?subjectid=211&articleid=20100627_211_G1_PhotoI147200&rss_lnk=7

Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life

2010-06-30T20:12:00.000-05:00

Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life

June, 2010

http://atheistconvention.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Copenhagen_Declaration.pdf

or http://tinyurl.com/26nfnpe

On this date, June 24, 1842, Ambrose Bierce was born in Ohio,

2010-06-24T06:00:00.001-05:00

Ambrose Bierce
June 24, 2010

On this date in 1842, Ambrose Bierce was born in Ohio, and left home at 15 to work as a "printer's devil" for a newspaper. At 17, he was enrolled at Kentucky Military Institute, and enlisted in the Civil War at age 19 in 1861. His experiences in that bloody war resulted in his Edgar Allen Poe-like "western gothic" supernatural stories, numbering more than 90, most set in the Civil War, which he wrote in middle age. Following the war, the young man went west, sharpening his writing skills on atheistic tracts and drawing a folio of political cartoons. Bierce was hired as a journalist for several San Francisco newspapers, writing 167 weekly, satiric "Town Crier" columns later published in book form, The Fiend's Delight (1872). Married in 1871, he and his new wife went on an extended honeymoon to England as a gift from his father-in-law. Bierce struck up friendships with the "Fleet Street Gang" and wrote for Figaro and Fun. Those columns were reprinted in book form as Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874). He and his young family returned to the United States, where he collaborated on a bestseller attacking the waltz (The Dance of Death), and wrote 87 weekly columns for the Argonaut.

After other journalism jobs, Bierce was hired by William Randolph Hearst in 1887, and worked for him for 21 years, inaugurating a column of witty epigrams. Vintage Bierce: "Camels and Christians receive their burdens kneeling." "Treat things divine with marked respect--don't have anything to do with them." Bierce's first collection of short stories, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, appeared in 1891, followed by Can Such Things Be? (1893). His ghost story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," is still anthologized. Bierce was at the height of his fame at the turn of the century, when his lobbying defeated a bill by "railroad rogues" seeking massive forgiveness of debt to the government. In 1906, The Cynic's Word debuted, to be renamed The Devil's Dictionary, his most enduring, freethought work. Bierce's personal life was rocky, with one son dying either of suicide or during a duel, another of pneumonia in his twenties, and Bierce's marriage ending in divorce, earning him the nickname "Bitter Bierce." In 1913, at age 70, he told friends during a visit to Texas that he was going South, and was never heard from again. Bierce reputedly fought beside Pancho Villa and died in battle, although some believe Villa killed him in a quarrel, and others maintain Bierce never went to Mexico at all. He is believed to have died in 1914. A novel speculating about Bierce's last days, The Old Gringo, was written by Carlos Fuentes in 1985, and was made into a movie starring Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda in 1989. D. 1914.

Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Evangelist, n. A bearer of good tidings, particularly (in a religious sense) such as assure us of our own salvation and the damnation of our neighbors.

Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

Pray. v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.

Reverence, n. The spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man.

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1906)

A Shell Game of Biblical Proportions

2010-06-20T12:09:00.001-05:00

cartoon courtesy of http://blogs.venturacountystar.com/greenberg/qqxsgProp8.jpg

A Shell Game of Biblical Proportions

(OKLAHOMA CITY) The recently concluded trial of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, popularly known as the California "Prop 8 Trial", showed with the clarity of Waterford crystal the tawdry reasoning and grasping mendacity of our homo-hating opponents.

Using thinly veiled religious arguments to quash our civil rights, millions of dollars were bilked from Mormon, Catholic, and Southern Baptist congregations and millions of voters were duped into voting for a shell game of biblical proportions.
( http://www.advocate.com/article.aspx?id=41338 , http://tinyurl.com/2dhucbv , http://tinyurl.com/aumrrx , http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=29229 )

Key witnesses bailed, intimidated by the--could it be the truth contained in our civil rights argument?--that the heteros are doing "harm" to the institution of marriage with their “irresponsible procreation”? ( http://tinyurl.com/298saed )

As procreation has been one of the chief reasons to maintain discrimination against gays and lesbians, the failure of Mr. Cooper, the attorney arguing in support of gay/lesbian discrimination, to make a convincing case leaves nothing but prejudice and old-fashioned hatred as the prime impetuous against gays and lesbians in the USA. No state has passed laws making procreation a requirement to obtain a marriage license or to remain married, yet such a specious argument was made to preclude our gay and lesbian citizens from the full inclusion in our American social fabric.

Procreation is an artifact of an earlier paradigm that also included the unassailable belief in the hierarchy of religious totems:
god, man, woman, child, servant, slave.

Perhaps, just maybe, the homo-hating hetero monopoly that rules on what's right and wrong, permissible and objectionable, has been broken, regardless of how the Supreme Court eventually rules when Perry v. Schwarzenegger makes it to DC.

Maureen Dowd of NYT on the Prop 8 closing!

http://tinyurl.com/24unsp4

clip--

Cooper failed to reflect the fervor of the anti-gay-marriage proponents who frothed in 2008, direly warning that marital parity would cause moral damage, hurting children, helping the devil and destroying civilization.

He tepidly offered an apocalyptic warning: “Without the marital relationship, Your Honor, society would come to an end.” He blamed “irresponsible procreation” — even though heterosexuals are the more likely perpetrators.

Love in a Time of Suffering

2010-06-14T21:51:00.001-05:00

with apologies for the title to Gabriel García Márquez

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Ah, we've made it through another June Pride Month in America where we GLBT-type people get all extra active over our civil rights issues with who ever is in the White House and which ever political party is in the Congressional majority.

When the Republicans get back in power we can rest easier knowing that the bigotry of low expectations, a phrase used to hide George Bush's low intelligence, will be restored.

Unitl that time, our fierce advocate-in-chief, dragging both his feet, has managed to get through Congress the Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Law, but that bill had been bubbling for eleven years on the political back burner, just waiting for the right seasoning to come along.

And now there's the "repeal" of Don't Ask-Don't Tell (DADT) that won't happen unless the Pentagon's reading of a proposed tea-leaf poll taken among service members approves of mommy and daddy's brave son or daughter risking his/her life for their country but who balk at sharing a shower, latrine, or other normal human situation with a gay man or woman.

I never knew it was so powerful being gay or lesbian: we can stop the mightiest military machine since the Roman Empire by merely flexing a pectoral muscle or winking an eyelid at the right time all the while we're stereotyped as flippant and weak.

I don't know why homo-haters think we GLBT-types are so different from them. Isn't love and devotion the same for heteros as homos? Let me give you an up-close-and-personal moment from my recent life.

My partner Don and I had some relatively minor flooding in our house in mid-June. We managed to save the wall-to-wall carpeting and contain the rain water to the tile- and linoleum-covered areas of the house. It was a frantic time. What to do first: bail water or pull up the throw-rugs? But we had an additional problem as well. Don is suffering from sciatica and finds any movement using his back and hips to be very painful, nearly debilitating. But with the flooding we needed all hands on deck with not a moment to lose.

I married a trooper! Howling like a wounded bear and ignoring the pain as best he could he was getting books and furniture out of the way as fast as he could while I was outside trying to clear a path for the rain water. As the rain abated we were both mopping and wiping the floors.

It's a terrible thing to hear someone you love crying out in such pain and torment knowing there's nothing you can do to alleviate it.

How does this devotion make Don and me inferior in the eyes of the law to Rush Limbaugh who just had his fourth marriage?

Why do the sheep-in-wolves's clothing "love the sinner" formulas of the right-wing religious fundies, local and national, sound so false?

Can it be because their own deficiencies need a target?

A Quick Tutorial on the Gay/Lesbian Equality Decisions of the Supreme Court

2010-06-12T22:44:00.008-05:00

graphic from gaylife.org

or Frank Rich can be the Best Man at my Marriage

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) As the time draws near for the final arguments of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, aka the Prop 8 trial, we'll come to the close of chapter four in the ongoing saga of America's love-hate relationship with diversity, be it based on skin color, gender, or sexual orientation.

I've numbered this as chapter four because there've been three previous chapters in our gay/lesbian history that have been decided by the United States Supreme Court, the first one going against us, with the subsequent two keeping us in the game.

Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) ruled 5-4 against us, claiming " ... a right to engage in such conduct is 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition' or 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty' is, at best, facetious."
(http://tinyurl.com/jus3e)

Romer v. Evans (1996) reared its ugly face in an attempt to further keep gay citizens away from full inclusion in the political and social fabric of the country. In a 6-3 ruling for us, Justice Kennedy wrote that the passage of Colorado's Amendment 2 disallowing any recognition of gay people under the laws of Colorado was unconstitutional.

He wrote in the majority opinion that "laws of the kind now before us raise the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected." The Court implied that the passage of Amendment 2 was born of a "bare...desire to harm a politically unpopular group".
( http://tinyurl.com/49m9er )

Turning the page we get to the decision striking down sodomy laws with the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) that helped immensely in removing the uncharged felon status every gay man and woman carried with them as these laws were selectively enforced to intimidate us in our public and private lives.
(http://tinyurl.com/br2tj )

The Prop 8 ruling, regardless of which gay or homo-hating party it favors, will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court where for many years the decisions have been 5-4 with the 5 going mostly to the regressive sides of the arguments, be they social justice or economic equality questions.

I was tickled pink when Olson and Boies took up the clarion call from the Equal Rights Foundation ( www.equalrightsfoundation.org ) to make a full court argument on our behalf for civil rights in marriage. Even as the purpose of the trial has been to reverse the unconscionable passage of California's Prop 8 that disallows same gender marriage after a favorable California Supreme Court ruling, there's no doubt in my mind that the extensive media coverage and social conversation of the nearly four-year history of this latest action to remove gay/lesbian discrimination has been effective in diluting the homo-hating potions and superstitious invectives thrown at us. The echos of previous court decisions across the country that have been heard will prove too powerful for the cobwebs of prejudice and animosity to resist.

Frank Rich, op/ed columnist for the New York Times, has written an optimistic essay I recommend for anyone down in the dumps over our on-again/off-again progress for civil equality. Mr. Rich writes that approval of same-gender marriage is higher now than the approval for inter-racial marriage a year after it was supported by a Supreme Court ruling in 1967, I think thanks to the vastly easier modes of communication now available with social networking and the Internet.

If Limbaugh can have Elton John sing at his fourth marriage can my first marriage be far behind?

From The New York Times' Frank Rich....
Op-Ed Columnist
Two Weddings, a Divorce and 'Glee'
By FRANK RICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/opinion/13rich.html
or http://tinyurl.com/38gornv

My selected excerpts:

Their [the enemies of same-gender marriage] stated reason for opposing a television record was fear that their witnesses might be harassed. But in the end the Prop 8 defenders mustered only two witnesses, just one of them a controversial culture warrior. That “expert” was David Blankenhorn, president of the so-called Institute for American Values. Blankenhorn holds no degree in such seemingly relevant fields as psychology, psychiatry or sociology. But his pretrial research did include reading a specious treatise by George Rekers, the antigay evangelist now notorious for his recent 10-day European trip with a young male companion procured from Rentboy.com. And Blankenhorn’s testimony relies on the same sweeping generalization as Rekers — that children raised by two biological parents are so advantaged that all alternatives should be shunned.

What was the unqualified Blankenhorn doing at the Prop 8 trial? Like Rekers, who had a lucrative history of testifying for pay in legal cases attacking gay civil rights, he also profits from his propaganda. Public documents, including tax returns, reveal that Blankenhorn’s institute, financed by such right-wing stalwarts as the Bradley and Scaife foundations, paid him $247,500 in base salary in 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, and another $70,000 to his wife. Not a bad payday for a self-professed arbiter of American marital values who under oath described his sole peer-reviewed academic paper (from the University of Warwick) as “a study of two cabinetmakers’ unions in 19th-century Britain.” That the Prop 8 proponents employed him as their star witness suggests that no actual experts could be found (or rented) to match his disparagement of gay parents.

Best and Worst Places to be Gay Around the World

2010-05-30T10:31:00.002-05:00

Acording to the ILGA study there are 76 countries banning gay sex and 7 retain the death penalty if convicted.

A very useful inter-active map showing many parameters of same-gender relationships and legal status worldwide is available here:

http://ilga.org/map/LGBTI_rights.jpg

ILGA -- the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association -- has released the fourth edition of its massive "State Sponsored Homophobia" report. The most significant change in the new edition: One-sixth of the world's gays and lesbians were emancipated when India's Delhi High Court legalized gay sex last July.

"Compared to last year's report, where we listed the 77 countries prosecuting people on ground of their sexual orientation, this year you will find 'only' 76 in the same list, including the infamous five which put people to death for their sexual orientation: Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen (plus some parts of Nigeria and Somalia)," wrote ILGA Co-Secretary General Gloria Careaga-Perez. "One country less compared to the 2009 list may seem little progress, until one realizes that it hosts one-sixth of the human population, as the country in question is India."

ILGA said the 76 nations criminalize "consensual sexual acts between persons of the same sex in private over the age of consent."

They are: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In addition, gay sex is illegal in the Cook Islands (a self-governing democracy in free association with New Zealand), the Gaza Strip in Palestine, and Northern Cyprus, which is recognized only by Turkey.

"Naming and shaming homophobic countries is essential but it is also important to recognize countries where progress is being made," said ILGA Co-Secretary General Renato Sabbadini. "For this year we are happy to see the federal district of Mexico City and Argentina joining the community of states and local authorities recognizing equal marriage rights to same-sex couples -- an example of genuine inclusiveness, which will set the standard for many to follow."

ILGA is a 33-year-old network of 700 LGBT and supportive organizations from 110 nations. It identifies as the only international, nongovernmental, community-based association focused on fighting discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity as a global issue.

The link references European countries only: tinyurl.com/ilga-ssh

Reproductive Justice Coalition speaks against abortion laws

2010-05-29T09:55:00.001-05:00

http://www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-news-abortion-reproductive-justice-hearing-story,0,4940982.story

or

http://tinyurl.com/2er7xlh

Fatherhood Dreams

2010-05-23T12:45:00.002-05:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) By the merest happenstance, pure coincidence, being in the right place at the right time, I've run across a very good and straight-forward DVD from Canada, "Fatherhood Dreams", that follows three gay families who have chosen to raise children.

Canada is the second largest country in North America, a parliamentary democracy and the only one that recognizes same-gender marriage throughout the country, not just in five of its states like the United States, or one city like Mexico.

The DVD follows some family scenes among three groups of gay and lesbian parents with both biological and adoptive children. The details of government support are hinted at but not detailed. You can read about how a strong government program, called Employment Insurance (EI) supports its citizens without regard to sexual orientation or religious belief by going to this link, Service Canada, http://tinyurl.com/2g5mv2q .

Randy and Drew, married under Canadian law, adopt a baby boy from a woman whose family has a history early teen pregnancy through three generations. In this case, the adoptive and biological parents have agreed to stay in contact.

Stephen, a patent attorney in British Columbia, married a woman early in his life, who knew of his gay orientation, and fathered a child with her. Latter, the birth mother acknowledged her lesbian orientation and began a domestic relationship with another woman, who herself had a child by artificial insemination. The three share parenting duties and at the time of filming Stephen and wife were discussing the pros and cons of divorcing in order to insure the best custody situation for the two children.

Third, but not the least, is the example of Scott, a single gay man with a strong need for parenting, who through surrogacy, has not only the one child he was thinking of, but twins, boy and girl. Interviews with the surrogate mother are included in the 55-minute DVD.

The DVD extras include two additional stories of gay men and the acceptance and discrimination faced by those who are gay and feel the need for parenting. There's also a 7-minute Q & A session with some of the principles and the director of the film.

Though parenting is not on my life list of things to do before I die I found this DVD expanding and challenging to my civil rights activism.
It isn't enough to just be comfortable about what I find necessary in my situation, it's also important to know there are many avenues to a productive life that advance peace and happiness for others.

I don't want to fall in the trap of thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the border by comparing this legal recognition of same-gender marriage in Canada to the religiously-dominated repression that has so entrapped the United States of America with its constant boasting of liberty and freedom, but one has to consider what is important for the livelihood and welfare of a country: dominating the world economically and militarily, or maintaining a strong domestic resiliency that promotes personal fulfillment without creating divisive class discrimination.

"Fatherhood Dreams" is available through DVD rental and public libraries. The website is http://fatherhooddreams.com/ .

Today is “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”

2010-05-20T09:39:00.002-05:00

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/mohammed-drawings.asp

Today is “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”

Rekers Reeks of Hypocricy -- Heaven-sent rent boy

2010-05-16T15:19:00.000-05:00

required reading if you're gay/lesbian or gay friendly

New York Times columnist Frank Rich hit's the subject of Rekers out of the ball park.

complete at: http://tinyurl.com/2cpjdu3

clip--

Thanks to Rekers’s clownish public exposure, we now know that his professional judgments are windows into his cracked psyche, not gay people’s. But there is nothing funny about the destruction his writings and public activities have sown. His fringe views have not remained on the fringe. His excursions into public policy have had real and damaging consequences on a large swath of Americans.

clip--

These dying gasps of our culture wars, like Rekers’s farcical pratfall, might be funnier if millions of gay Americans and their families were not still denied their full civil rights.

To replace John Paul Stevens, an atheist

2010-05-07T15:10:00.001-05:00

Readers,

If we're to be judged by a jury of our peers, I should think that a judge should be in the same frame of reference.

I've been helping since January 2010 at the monthly naturalization ceremony at the OKC Federal Courthouse.

It's appalling to me the number of times references to the christian god are made:

All rise and god protect this honorable court....

Oath of Naturalization Do you swear (or affirm).... so help you god? No one seems to notice that to affirm can also mean you don't recognize the christian god, yet at the end of the oath, you must ask for the help of "god" in maintaining the oath.

A video from Obama (just which president makes no difference) makes two oratorical pronouncements calling down the power of the christian god to bless the participants.

Pledge of allegiance... one nation under god

And to ward off those who think the word "god" can mean all the myriad of gods these new citizens can still believe in, I think the christian god is the only one I know about whose name is not to be said. "Lord" is not a name, it's a title, "god" is not a name, it's a noun.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/name.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe--cooper-20100504,0,1142903.story

To replace John Paul Stevens, an atheist

It's something Thomas Jefferson might have done: nominate a nonbeliever to
the Supreme Court

Marc Cooper

May 4, 2010

As President Obama considers nominees to replace retiring Supreme Court
Justice John Paul Stevens, a debate bubbles as to whether religion should
play a role in his choice.

This is a no-brainer. The religious views of the next justice of the high
court must absolutely be a decisive factor.

snip---

the rest at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe--cooper-20100504,0,1142903.storyIf we're to be judged by a jury of our peers, I should think that a judge should be in the same frame of reference.

The "Propriety" in Mocking the Founder of Islam

2010-04-26T19:56:00.005-05:00

(OKLAHOMA CITY) The discussion of the "propriety" in mocking the founder of Islam (Dare anyone say his name lest one receive death threats?) is beyond the pale. Why should the irreverent South Park cartoon have its content censored because the writers choose to make a satirical comment regarding the alleged Mohammad (Blessed be his name)?

If one takes his/her religious POV seriously and values that freedom of expression yet simultaneously finds that the POV of others made in a peaceful, legal way to be abhorrent and retaliates with veiled threats or actual violence, let me suggest that this country is not the one you should be living in.

Why not emigrate to a country where the rule of law, as well as a tradition of freedom of expression, is not observed. Why proselytize oppression in America when there are numerous Muslim countries to choose from where you'll be welcome with open arms?

The parallel of self-righteous Islamic fundamentalists threatening those who would mock it and the use by Christian fundamentalists of the police power of the state to block gay and lesbian citizens from protection of their rights and property is striking.

I find this uproar over religious superiority to be especially egregious in that as a gay man I'm unable to marry my partner of 33 years under civil law because my state has imposed the religious dogma of totalitarian denominations as the civil law of the state, forced into the state constitution in violation of the First Amendment of the federal Constitution.

Many states have passed similar laws and amendments inhibiting the full expression of the rights and benefits of America's gay and lesbian taxpayers even as we pay the full price of citizenship.

Op-Ed: You Can't Portray Muhammad On TV
http://tinyurl.com/3afwumg This link is to Talk of the Nation with guest columnist Ross Douthat who has written about why one line in popular culture that can't be crossed is painted in Islamic green.

Islam: What's Arabic for "freedom of speech?"

2010-04-25T10:16:00.001-05:00

http://theobjectivestandard.com/blog/2010/04/how-to-stand-with-stone-and-parker.asp

How to Stand with Stone and Parker
by Daniel Wahl

Following thinly-veiled death threats by a Muslim group against Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the creators of South Park) for portraying Muhammad dressed as a bear in a cartoon, Anderson Cooper interviewed the author of Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I grew up as a Muslim [said Ali] and growing up as a Muslim I learned you don’t criticize Allah, the Koran, or the prophet Muhammad, and you should participate in condemning and eventually killing anybody who does. That is just what the religion tells us; that’s what scripture tells us.

Ali then responded to the threats properly:

It is an assault on the freedom of expression and we have to defend it tooth and nail. That means we all stand by Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker. . . . And [it] means scrutinizing Islam, criticizing it, in the same way that we criticize Christianity [or] Judaism.

But what properly is the essence of such a criticism? Is religion—any religion—compatible with free speech? Can one worship “God” and free speech too? Craig Biddle tackles these questions in “Religion vs. Free Speech.” Summing up his argument, he writes:

The tenets of religion are incompatible with the right to free speech. The only way to mix the two in one’s mind is to take neither of them seriously. But not taking religion seriously does not change what religion is or says or means. And not taking freedom of speech seriously does not alter the fact that it is a fundamental requirement of human life.

The right to free speech is the recognition of the fact that in order for people to live together peacefully, they must be free to express their thoughts—regardless of what others think, feel, or “just believe.” We needfreedom of expression; and to establish and maintain it, we must repudiate religion and embrace the rational foundation for rights.

If we fail to challenge the growing threat to freedom of speech at the most fundamental level, we will lose the freedom to express our ideas—which means, we will lose our ability to live as civilized human beings. In order to disarm those who attack the right to free speech, we must identify religion—all religion—as what it is: illogical, invalid, inhuman, and immoral.

To learn why standing unequivocally with Stone and Parker requires challenging not only Islam but religion as such, read the whole thing.

Belated observance of Earth Day with a diversion to how we live are are governed....

2010-04-25T10:04:00.002-05:00

Belated observance of Earth Day with a diversion to how we live are are governed....

May I suggest that the standards some people use for their own subjective stadards are too high, while others have to deal with nearly nothing or the kindness of strangers.

We know the USA uses way too much of the earth's resources; how do we determine what's an acceptable standard of living?
Shouldn't we use Roosevelt's list of four freedoms, this is a socialist credo I could sure live with:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrthefourfreedoms.htm

or http://tinyurl.com/y63fqh

snip--

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

Which Door Do You Want Between You and Your Civil Rights?

2010-04-24T15:33:00.003-05:00

Religious or Civil?

(OKLAHOMA CITY) For those who don't quite understand the importance of religious beliefs, dogmas, and policies being kept separate from the civil rights of citizens, policies, and laws enacted by both state legislatures and the Congress, may I offer the controversy of same-gender marriage as one important aspect of this vital educational, political, and cultural Constitutional issue.

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, ( http://www.interfaithalliance.org/ ) was recently in Oklahoma City and Tulsa promoting the need for civil dialog and listening to others in order to better understand both the acceptance and the opposition to ideas and actions that change our society and laws.

OETA, the Oklahoma public television network ( http://www.oeta.tv/ ), interviewed Dr. Gaddy
about the difference between private religious practices and the public need for accommodation of diversity in our state and national laws. By going to OETA's link to the interview at http://www.oeta.tv/programs/ondemand.html?list=oklahoma_forum
or http://tinyurl.com/y2m65rw you can watch the interview at your convenience. Choose the program titled "Politics, Religion, and Civility."

Regardless of the state you live in Dr Gaddy gives excellent points you can use in your own discussions with friends, family, and elected representatives.

Dr. Gaddy clearly states that marriage licenses begin with issuance from the state as required by law, followed by an optional choice made by the couple between a religious (you know what that means) or non-religious (county judge, justice of the peace) ceremony.

No clergy authorized by law in any state to conduct marriages will ever be required to perform marriages which contradict that clergy person's religious affiliation. In fact. Dr. Gaddy said he has declined to conduct some marriages in his own faith as he felt the couples were ill-prepared.

It appears to me that people who can not understand this simple precept and who actively work to block the civil rights of same-gendered people are either willfully acting stupid or are attempting to impose, through the police power of the state, the restrictive dogma of their particular religion.

Some denominations recognize same-gender marriage (United Church of Christ, Unitarian, Lutherans Concerned/North America (LC/NA) ) while others do not (Roman Catholic, Mormon, Southern Baptist) as is their First Amendment right. However, neither the accepting or objecting denominations have a right to interpose religious beliefs between the sanctified doors of their houses of worship and the county court house doors of the respective states.

Americans United Praises Justice Stevens' Record On Church And State

2010-04-09T15:29:00.001-05:00

Watchdog Group Says Justice’s Replacement Must Respect Church-State Separation And Religious Freedom

April 9, 2010

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today praised Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens for his record of support for church-state separation and expressed the hope that his replacement will hold similar views.
Stevens, the oldest member of the court, announced this morning that he will retire at the end of this term. President Barack Obama is expected to soon reveal his choice to replace Stevens.

“Justice Stevens is an icon -- a thoughtful, perceptive justice who understands the role of church-state separation in American life,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “It is vitally important that President Obama choose a high court nominee who understands that government may not meddle in matters of religion.

“The high court is deeply divided on church-state issues,” Lynn continued. “It is imperative that Stevens’ replacement be someone who understands and upholds the constitutional mandate of church-state separation.”
Read the full press release at www.au.org

Substitute Language Must be Submitted to Re-Educate Deranged Oklahoma Senator

2010-04-07T11:25:00.003-05:00

Graphic courtesy of the Free Dictionary--www.thefreedictionary.com

Public Officials Should be Given a Chance to Change

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Substitute language should be introduced today into SB1965, that if passed and signed into law by the governor, would require Sen. Steven Russell, R-Oklahoma City, to enroll in the same civics classes required of immigrants who wish to become United States citizens.

This would enable Sen. Russell to review his seemingly deficient English reading comprehension and retention skills which have apparently deteriorated due to lack of use.

Also included in his reparative therapy would be a review of the US Constitution and the accompanying Bill of Rights--documents, it would appear by his actions, that have slipped beyond the memory recovery function of Sen. Russell's cognition.

Evidence of this mental deficiency is seen in his attempt this legislative session to have a bill passed that would exempt Oklahoma law enforcement authorities from co-operating with Federal law enforcement authorities in the investigation of any hate crime that falls under coverage of the recently passed Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Hate Crimes law.

You can read the operative language that has apparently deranged Sen. Russell's mind at this link: http://tinyurl.com/ye97qff

Please join me in contacting your state senators and representatives to encourage them to pass with a unanimous vote this substitute language in SB 1965, which would be in the humanitarian interest of all Oklahomans, including Sen. Russell and any family members he might have.

I'm sure readers will wish Sen. Russell success as he begins his recovery program to reenter society as a fully integrated citizen, without malice in his heart and with justice in his eyes.

Further details about Sen Russell's pathetic plight can be found in this Tulsa World story by following this link: http://tinyurl.com/yfc9fel

Hall-la-lou-lou-ing for Oklahoma's Senator Tom Coburn: Congress's Worst Person?

2010-04-04T10:33:00.004-05:00

graphic from: http://doubledutchpolitics.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

__________________________

Hall-la-lou-lou-ing for Oklahoma's Senator Tom Coburn: Congress's Worst Person?

Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To GOP Obstruction

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) As Henry II is alleged to have said to his henchmen in regard to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, who had been blocking some of Henry's governing and expropriating plans, "Is there no one to rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Odd isn't it how frequently, almost inevitably, religious piety and the process of making civil law become nearly conjoined twins.

As of today there is no one who has announced in Oklahoma to run against GOPer Senator "Dr. NO" Tom Coburn whose term expires this year, nor has Coburn said he would not run for re-election.

Coburn is notorious for blocking social services bills containing unemployment and disaster relief that offer some assistance to those taxpayers whose jobs and property have been seriously damaged through no fault of their own, or as some people might say, "acts of 'god'."

Here is a link to a story concerning Coburn's latest exercise in self-righteousness: http://tinyurl.com/y95cqpp

Amazing isn't it that such an obstreperous, vainglorious, self-serving, hard-hearted individual is able to do as he pleases with Senate bills that affect real people who have to deal with real problems. Coburn in his other-worldly remoteness as he lives up to another aspect of his Dr. NO nick-name, has no fear of consequences from the voters of Oklahoma who in turn pride themselves on their allegiance to their sky god as they halla-lou-lou this easter week over the supposed resuscitation of a doubtful historical figure and its associated mythical suffering. These same fundies are perfectly comfortable allowing one of their Senators to exacerbate the real time sufferings of their fellow Americans in other parts of the country.

I look forward to the oncoming plains states tornado season, not for the inevitable destruction of life property that these storms will bring to Oklahoma, but rather for the inevitable double standard form of empathy Dr. NO exercises on the floor of the Senate.

Will Coburn throw another NO-wrench into the gears of the Senate process when Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry makes the request for disaster relief due to severe storms and drought that occur in Oklahoma with the regularity of clockwork?

Isn't empathy a two-way street? Will the self-righteous voters of Oklahoma be expecting Coburn to stick to his principles or to relax them for their own needs?

There's No Excuse, on Earth or Anywhere Else

2010-03-27T21:07:00.002-05:00

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) A revelatory story, both in the religious hagiography and the civil law sense of the word, as been published by the New York Times, uncovering another dirty cassock in the Catholic laundry hamper of sex crimes, accompanying those found in Massachusetts and other American states, as well as Ireland, Germany and, it would seem, Italy. ( http://tinyurl.com/ylfl4p4 )

This time it's a Father Murphy who's accused of doing the dirty to over 200 deaf boys in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

If this "father" Murphy had been a normal person at the time of the alleged crimes, instead of having been the recipient of the laying on of hands representing the "unbroken" continuity of the priesthood clear back to the "rock" of Peter, he'd be wearing a striped suit right now in a prison instead of a solid black cassock in a rectory. However, "father" Murphy is beyond the summons of earthly law having died in 1998.

Please no one tell me how this chain of over 200 rapes of deaf boys wasn't Murphy's fault because the Roman Catholic rule on celibacy prevented him from finding an acceptable "release" for his sexual needs. Or that the rule on celibacy needs to be relaxed so these kinds of things won't happen. That's no excuse. Priests take vows of celibacy.

Don't tell me Murphy was a closeted gay man. That's no excuse. Most rapes of children are committed by straight men known to the victims. ( http://www.pcar.org/about_sa/stats.html )

Young boys and girls are powerless to give or withhold consent under the law for sexual activity, even with others their own age, so don't give me the excuse the kids were "asking for it." They are not substitutes for adults of either gender when adults acting under the smokescreen of sanctified garments have to act out their anti-social dysfunction.

There is no excuse on earth or anywhere else, if you believe that heaven thing, for the rape of children.

And rape is the word to use, not this mincing, diffused, indirect way of publicly talking about these atrocities by using the phrase "sexual abuse."

Masturbation past the level of pleasure could be termed "sexual abuse" but at least you've made the private choice with no one else involved.

When someone forces or entices another person to be the recipient of unwanted sexual acts and/or aggression that's rape in my lexicon.

Why should the "holy" Chief Operating Officer of the Vatican get absolution on his own documented actions that are clearly acts of dereliction of earthly law and certainly of the human decency espoused by Ratzinger's holy model.

The New York Times story ( http://tinyurl.com/yetsdlh ) reports that in 1996, the current pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, failed to answer two letters from the Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland in regard to the accusations directed toward Father Murphy.
It was during this time that Ratzinger was in charge of the Vatican's doctrinal enforcement office, acquiring the nickname "god's rottweiler", a chilling phrase that seems to have been appropriately bestowed.

The Catholic process for a trial was suspended by the order of Ratzinger's second-in-command, another cardinal named Bertone. [Note: The NY Times article includes links to a sampling of the documentation.]

According to the NY Times story:

"In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

"But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger..."

How valuable it would have been to be a crucifix on the wall when that discussion took place. It rivals Richard Nixon's 18 1/2 minute tape gap during the Watergate scandal.

But there is still extant documentation and living witnesses to this inexcusable violation of the trust of children, both orphans and those with living parents.

Oh, but I forget the pope is the bridge between heaven and earth. When he's elected by his fellow pope-wanna-be cardinals he becomes the "lord's vicar" on earth and his dove-delivered infallibility on faith and morals becomes an institute not to be questioned.

I think he needs to deliver another one of those formal papal pronouncements called a Bull because what could be more relevant to faith and morals than how priests conduct themselves with the children placed in their charge?

Social War Mongers Fear Peaceful Action

2010-03-21T12:57:00.004-05:00

graphic from http://waronyou.com/forums/index.php?topic=12061.20
Social War Mongers Fear Peaceful Action

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Through the lack of progress made by the so-called national G/L leaders and their organizations, we're learning that a grass-roots, feet-on-the-ground, self-motivated movement is what's necessary to get our civil rights birthright recognized.

Elected leaders fear most ANY peaceful, non-violent, non-destructive confrontation with the voters. They don't know what to do. All their experience has been about sucking up to big-dollar donors who want access for their private projects.

We gays/lesbians don't want private comity paid for our tax dollars. We want the civil equality we're paying for but that we're not receiving. Non-receipt of services or fraudulent manufacture of goods paid for usually means a refund of the purchase price. In our case, I think removal from office of the fraudulent officeholder with the election and replacement by a proven advocate of gay/lesbian equality is our legal avenue to success.

Social war mongers are discomfited by peaceful actions. Is it illegal to be peaceful? Has the right to petition our members of Congress become a dangerous subversive action?

In this video clip from QueerRising and Act on Principles we see that
social war mongers are clearly discomfited by peaceful actions.

snip--Can you say genius, dramatic, over the top, and powerful? Thanks to Alan Bounville of QueerRising for sharing his very simple yet powerful action in solidarity with Lt. Dan Choi and Captain James Pietrangelo’s action at the White House. Watch the video until the end, you won’t be disappointed.

http://tinyurl.com/yedjd87

Which Came First: Chicken or the Eggs?

2010-02-27T10:59:00.002-06:00

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Oklahoma Democrat Rep. Rebecca Hamilton (HD 89) is at it again and she should be watched as closely as we watch the machinations of GOPer Rep. Sally Kern (HD 84). Hamilton refers to females who have passed the age of consent as "girls" and Kern gets the cart before the horse by thinking adults who can easily marry should divorce.with difficulty.

Case in point is this very good editorial from the Tulsa World linked below that rightfully points out the hypocrisy of Hamilton's viewpoint that women, or "girls" as she's quoted saying, should not be allowed to sell their eggs for human fertility clinics. These "girls" can donate for absolutely no "valuable consideration" their eggs and at the same time Hamilton has failed to consider the other half of her privacy restricting equation in that no mention is made of men (or "boys" to use her odd parlance) who donate sperm to fertility clinics.

This points out her dedicated hatred and diminution of women who want to make private decisions concerning the use of their own bodies for peaceful, humane purposes.

The bill is question is HB3077. You can read all the bill's background at this link:

http://tinyurl.com/yfp48m2

You can read the complete editorial from the Tulsa World here:

EXCERPT:
http://tinyurl.com/yfoexcb

Hams and eggs
Oklahoma lawmakers play doctor again

By World's Editorial Writers

Just when you think the Legislature's antics couldn't get any more silly or
useless, lawmakers turn around and top themselves again.

The latest outrage is the brainchild of Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, D-Oklahoma
City, who wants to prohibit women from selling their eggs, known medically
as ova.

Hamilton says the practice, known to occur among college-age women,
endangers young women's lives. "These girls are being injured. They are
dying," she asserted.

Doctors associated with fertility clinics had a different view, not
surprisingly. They say the practice enables childless families to realize
their hope of having children. They also say there is little risk involved,
at most a little bleeding and possibly infection. One doctor said the
process poses no more risk than riding in a car.

Sub Sailor's Views on Glasnost

2010-02-27T09:36:00.001-06:00

http://www.americablog.com/2009/05/saturday-morning-open-thread.html

There was a lot of talk about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this week, mostly because the Obama administration's website seemed to indicate a change in policy. Although, thanks to Joe.My.God and John Aravosis, that's been fixed.

One of our readers, Timothy Beauchamp (cowboyneok), had to leave the military because he was gay back in the later 80s. Tim was a sailor on the nuclear sub USS Henry Clay at the end of the cold war. He's also a poet. Even after he was forced out of the military, the Smithsonian's Museum of American History included one of Tim's poems in an exhibit on subs and the cold war. The curator initially told Tim his poem was one of the best artifacts she had seen from a service member on the Cold War. But, she later made it seem like Tim had tricked her into publishing his poem because he had a secret political agenda about being gay and serving on submarines. Again, that was back in the late 80s/early 90s. We haven't progressed all that far in terms of military policy. Tim is why repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" matters.

So, with that build up, this week's poem is Sub Sailor Tim's poem -- a true artifact of the cold war, which someday soon will hopefully be an artifact of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell":

Sub Sailor's Views on Glasnost
by Tim Beachamp

When rhetoric from both sides
Begins to offend
Opinions at home
Seem to change like the wind
Still we patrol
the ocean deep
We made a promise
we plan to keep
Its kind of ironic
We protect
Freedom at home
Through our isolation
But just to know
Freedom is protected
For me, at least,
is some consolation
Reagan and Gorbachev
Back and forth volley
While Nancy and Raisa
Put on their best
Capitalist - Communist
Political Folly!
What does it matter
Its East against West
Get rid of that bomb
Dismantle that one
That leaves you this many
And leaves us that
Wait one!
Hold on now!
What about Star Wars?
Take it or leave it
There’s the door
Here’s your hat
Opinion at home
Seems to be changing
Russia’s no longer the wicked beast
American stores - stocks rearranging
Communist t-shirts
Embracing the East
Would it be nice
To put away the war heads?
Let’s be friends and melt this Cold War?
Would it be nice
To change human nature?
It stays the same so what’s it all for?
They call how we’re living
Social Darwinism
Good luck to you
May the best man win
Seems to me Soviet Socialism
Favors the powerful
Politburo men
So what’s the difference
Between our two nations?
Is it a question of status quo?
Where can a poor man
Escape deprivation?
Can the Russian peasant
Put down his hoe?
I guess in a way
We have lots in common
Their Afghanistan War
And our Viet Nam
I guess in a way
We share the same lessons
From Afghan rebels and the Viet Cong
And when it comes
To loving our children
Both of our countries
They do pretty well
But do they have a future
In this cold world we live in?
Only God knows
And time will tell.

Oklahoma Women Retain Control of Their Own Bodies

2010-02-19T16:32:00.004-06:00

graphic courtesy of http://www.greenchange.org

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) This afternoon, February 19, Oklahoma County Court Judge Daniel L. Owens found in favor of the plaintiffs, Wanda Jo Stapleton and Jo Davis, in their lawsuit contending that HB 1595 contained more than one topic, violating the Oklahoma Constitution and previous State Supreme Court mandates.

HB 1595 was the latest attempt to separate women from their bodily integrity by allowing politicians, both male and female, to practice medicine without a license.

This decision is a victory for all Oklahoma women. In the ruling Judge Owens said after his extensive reading of the bill and the cases cited by both plaintiffs and defendant he could not determine that the bill was valid under the Oklahoma Constitution. He went on to say he was not determining if abortion was legal or not, but that this bill was invalid due to containing more than one topic and was not enforceable.

Judge Owens delivered a miniature civics lesson in the duties of the three branches of government in Oklahoma, emphasizing that the courts do not make policy. He spoke of the germaneness test that analyzes the purposes of statues under review.

The State has ten days to file an appeal. Judge Owens complimented the attorneys on both sides as to the quality of their presentations and documents filed supporting their arguments.

Mrs. Stapelton and Mrs. Davis were represented by Martha Hardwick of Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Center for Reproductive Rights based in New York. A summary of the case can be read at their website: http://reproductiverights.org/en/case/davis-v-wa-drew-edmondson-ok or http://tinyurl.com/yb5wo57 .

The Attorney-General's office as required by law defended the bill with outside legal assistance.

Additional information can be read here from Channel 9 of Oklahoma City--
http://www.kwtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12000670#WNPoll92949

Judge Owens remarked that selective abortion prohibitions only concerned two paragraphs of a multi-page bill and the rest of the text referred to multiple topics which was why he found the bill to be invalid.

The defense attorneys had kept as the center of their argument that the purpose of this bill was to prevent selective abortions due to the sex of the fetus.

However, according to a statement made by Jo Davis with information drawn from the Oklahoma Health Department's own website, OK2SHARE, 96% of abortions in Oklahoma are performed before the 18-20th week of pregnancy when the sex of the fetus can not be determined.

The double standard of politicians who on the one hand keep touting less interference from government, on the other hand have no qualms about placing themselves alongside, if not in front of, the trained medical professionals involved in personal procedures.

Women who have made the difficult, emotional decision to have an abortion do not need the additional hubris brought on by interfering amateurs, charlatans, and Elmer Gantry's. Politicians should not be using taxpayer dollars to reinforce their election campaign issues.

The complete statement from Mrs. Davis continues here:

Current abortion statistics can be found at http://www.health.state.ok.us/ok2share/itop.html .These statistics are listed by year and for all 77 counties. Data about race, education level, marital status, patient’s abortion and pregnancy history, type of procedure, and length of gestation, is all included. This site proves that basic usable data is already available and that there is no need to annually spend a quarter of a million dollars to create this data base. This bill was created to allow the politicians involved an opportunity to whip up their base using our taxpayer money as fuel.

Questions about gender selection are not included in this data. The political ploy suggesting that gender selection abortions are being done and can be identified by a survey is literally insulting to the intelligence of Oklahoma voters. Most people are smart enough to realize that the gender of the child cannot be determined before 18-20 weeks even with an ultrasound. The current Health Dept. data base shows that over 96% of abortions occur before that time period. Even after that time period, gender determination requires an ultrasound so most women seeking abortions wouldn't know the gender of the fetus beforehand in order to even consider aborting based on gender selection.

This bill will cost taxpayers A QUARTER MILLION DOLLARS yearly and when the court and lawyer costs are included over a half a million this year. Our state has a huge budget shortfall this year thanks to the stewardship of the same politicians that are pushing this useless legislation forward.

The government has no business interfering with private reproductive choices. Remember, if the government is given the right to decide whether a pregnancy can be terminated, they can very easily use that right to someday force termination like China does. --- Lora Jo Davis

Sometimes I Feel like a Stockholm Syndrome Victim

2010-02-14T11:10:00.006-06:00

Photos by Jamie McGonnigal, www.TalkAboutEquality.org

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Sometimes I feel like a Stockholm syndrome victim. That's a person who, being held in confinement and subjected to "re-education", becomes an adherent to the very policies and agendas of those who are holding him/her against their will. Think of it as a form of passive/aggressive behavior where the aggressive part never kicks in to play.

Below is posted the link to an excellent article describing the continued disposal of our American human rights by the United States Supreme Court in the case known as Citizens United wherein corporations are acknowledged to have the same First Amendment rights as humans.

From the beginning, America has been about acquiring and holding on to property, be it humans that were counted as 3/5ths of a person and only abolishing it with a civil war resulting in the most citizen carnage of any American-involved conflict, or women who were ignored until 1920 when they finally got to legally vote. America has never been first in anything that advanced human decency unless there was profit attached. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage

Besides the Citizens United case, the Kelo case allowing the government power of eminent domain to be used giving private developers public property for non-public profit is another example of the mis-use of the coercive use of government power. http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/24/scotus.property/

Peaceful Democracy, the euphemistically named political system that is nearly always installed by war, is being forced on the citizens of middle eastern countries who's history for thousands of years has been one of brutal monarchies, military dictatorships, and religious fanatics, is in scant supply in the self-promoting, self-back-slapping Dis-United States, where taxpayers who have never harmed anyone physically or mentally are subjected to both only because they are attracted emotionally and romantically to others of the same gender. http://wockner.blogspot.com/ (February 13, 2010)

"We, the People", indeed, should stop being the door mat, and instead be the lock on the front door against the use of money to purchase our Constitution and civil rights.

James Nimmo

Indicting the Supreme Court

By Prof John Kozy
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24663.htm
February 12, 2010 "Global Research" - -Grumbling over the Supreme Court's recent decision in Citizens United continue to rumble like distant thunder. Will the decision go down in history as one more in the Court's long line of egregious opinions? Likely! Will it have much effect on the American political landscape? Likely not! Simply ask yourself, how much worse can it get?

There is scant evidence that the Congressional attempts to limit corporate expenditures in electioneering have had any effect in reducing corporate influence in government. Expecting the Congress, most if not all of whose members reside deep in corporate pockets, to eliminate that influence can be likened to expecting the rhinovirus to eliminate the common cold. Corporate money is the diseased life-blood of American politics; it carries its cancerous spores to all extremities.

complete at: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24663.htm

If the Obvious is Obvious....

2010-02-03T15:48:00.005-06:00

If the Obvious is Obvious....
Okie GOPer Gets Squirrelly Over the Obvious
by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) If the obvious is obvious, then why skirt around the obvious word? Isn't it obvious gays and lesbians are the obvious targets?

Let me explain.

GOPer Rep. Jason Nelson gets a bit squirrelly in his use of the word "shell" in reference to his bill to arrest clergy who perform religious ceremonies he doesn't like. He's obviously not at all embarrassed that his plan has been discovered, yet if a shell bill is merely a formality as he says, why does he select clergy performing ceremonies in the context of their constitutionally protected religious practices? And why does he single out marriage? Why didn't he choose baptism, or divorce, or circumcision?

Here's an OU Daily Oklahoman story about Nelson's (R-HD 87) attempt to obliterate the obvious.

http://www.oudaily.com/news/2010/feb/03/marriage-bill-faces-scrutiny/
or http://tinyurl.com/ye7lycp

And here's another POV of Nelson's obvious gay-hating bill from beyond Okie-land borders.

http://www.queerty.com/why-is-ok-rep-jason-nelson-changing-just-1-word-of-a-law-banning-priests-from-officiating-gay-marriages-20100127/ or http://tinyurl.com/ydbm8wq

See! I'm not infected with the Tenther-Birther-Tea-Bag virus.

It's obvious GOPer Rep. Nelson isn't satisfied that in Oklahoma there's an immoral and illegal constitutional amendment imposed by the voters in 2004 preventing recognition by the state of same-gender marriages, part of my civil rights.

No county clerk will issue a valid license; therefore, there is no marriage, period! And then there's the federal law known as DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) which allows states to ignore, if they wish, same-gender marriages performed in other states. And if that weren't enough DOMA also prohibits federal benefits granted to hetero-couples from being granted to homo-couples.

Having done everything obviously to sequester gay and lesbian couples in the public forum, Nelson now wants to go after clergy performing ceremonies that have no legal recognition outside the walls of their sanctuaries. This obvious desire runs smack against the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of, and freedom from, religion.

Why do religious fundies in Oklahoma not understand that they've killed the golden goose of their gay hatred by passing restrictive laws and amendments against gay and lesbian taxpayers. The only obvious thing to do next is to restrict our movements within the state, segregating us to gay ghettos as the Nazis did to the Jews of Germany.

Nelson's motives are obviously rooted in a word known as "over-kill", a word I use in trepidation when talking about obvious homo-haters.

R.I.P. Matthew Shepard.

I know what change looks like, but all I can see are two faces.

2010-02-02T21:15:00.006-06:00

I know what change looks like, but all I can see are two faces.

Constitutional Rights Are Not a Raffle Ticket Prize
by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) In this article from the Salt Lake City Tribune, we're told that support for LGBTs has "shot up" over the past year following passage of a bias ban approved by the Salt Lake City Council that includes sexual orientation/gender identity in housing and employment.

How many times have I heard that legislatures and courts must not get too far ahead of the "will of the people" or there will be some ill-described chicken-little type of reaction among the voters: respect for the law and mom and apple pie will diminish and Gee-sus himself will come to earth and....well, you get the drift.

After reading the article I'm again reminded that so many people, such as toe-the-line Mormons, can change their opinions merely because their leaders, in effect, tell them to, either directly through the legislative process or by leading with their own behavioral change.

If this SLC Tribune poll is close to accurate in its description, just how accurate is the dreadful prediction that should the United States Supreme Court rule in our same-gender marriage favor on appeal of the currently litigated California Prop 8 trial, America will fall into total oblivion with Joe Six-Pack hubbies divorcing their long suffering wives to run off for a gay fling with Ted Haggard, and Sally Soccer moms running off to pal around with Ellen Degeneres for free samples of Cover Girl make-up? Just how far in front of public opinion does the Supreme Court need to be if a majority of Mormons in Utah, which led the fight with Roman Catholics against Prop 8 in California in 2008, can increase by a range of 10% to 45% their approval and acceptance of gay/lesbian civil rights in their own state.

By the way, the recognition of my civil rights is inherent with my birth as an American citizen and in no way needs approval from anyone, let alone those who believe in golden tablets from the sky, magic underwear, and ancestral baptism. The denial of my civil rights because I'm gay is what's illegal, not my desire to have the same social, financial, and legal benefits which I'm paying for with my taxes. No one's Constitutional civil rights should be held up as the prize for a raffle ticket in the lottery of public opinion.

What I'm coming around to is this: If America had a national spokesperson who lead using the force of law as well as his own example and not just by mere words of fierce advocacy, and who had lead by his presence in Maine in its recent vote on same-gender marriage, or even further back, to the California vote in November 2009 on Prop 8--both votes having a devastating setback on civil rights for gay/lesbian taxpayers--can't you imagine that successful votes would have reinforced the legislative and judicial decisions that were already in place at the time, decisions that fully recognized our rights of citizenship?

What if that person was the president of the United States, one who prides himself on his commitment to changing the tone of government in Washington?

I know what change-I-can-believe-in looks like, but all I can see are two faces.

http://tinyurl.com/ygpfk6u
'Dramatic jump' with Utahns for gay rights
Salt Lake City Tribune
snip--Poll shows big increase in support for LGBT rights in Utah: Some two in three Utah residents back workplace protections for LGBT workers and hospital visitation and inheritance rights for gay and lesbian couples, compared with 56% in January of last year, a Salt Lake Tribune poll has found. The shift in support for LGBT rights follows the November approval by the Salt Lake City Council of measures to ban bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing and the workplace.

snip--

Opposition dropped, overall, from 40 percent to 23 percent. Among LDS respondents, it plummeted from 48 percent to 28 percent.

"This isn't a gradual change of attitudes. This is a fairly dramatic jump," says Matthew Burbank, chairman of the University of Utah's political science department. "Clearly, the fact that the LDS Church was officially endorsing this position had an impact on people."

Gay Blood Weaker than Water

2010-01-31T10:52:00.006-06:00

Photo courtesy of Box Turtle Bulletin
_________________________

Killed in the line of duty but regarded as second class --
gay blood weaker than water
by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Why is it that one can risk, and sometimes loose, one's life, pay taxes, contribute to a better society, but if that person is gay, lives in a gay-negative state, the obituaries and official press release from your employer ignore your family life? Does this happen with heteros?

Even though Missouri has two major American cities, its policies towards gay/lesbian state employees is still in the 1950s. According to my count and the Victory Fund, Missouri has three out state legislators, Oklahoma has one. http://www.glli.org/out_officials

For readers in Oklahoma, you might be interested to know (if you didn't already) that Rep McAffrey's Bill #2339 would grant same-gender benefits to state employees. As I read it that would include same-gender as well as opposite-gender couples. http://www.gossip-boy.com/HB_2339.html

You can read more about Rep. McAffrey at his web-page: http://www.almcaffrey.com/ Rep. McAffrey has a variety of news releases on his website showing his attention and solutions to the major problems with Oklahoma today. Unlike some legislators, Rep. McAffrey is not interested in ambulance chasing in order to hear the siren. Rep McAffrey is a solid advocate for making all his constituents's lives better.

Oklahoma taxpayers can lobby our own legislators to pass Rep. McAffrey's bill with a phone call, hand-written letter or email. Contact information is here: http://www.lsb.state.ok.us/ . Keep it clean but assertive. Even if you find your legislator to be unresponsive, think of it as educating the uninformed. With enough repetitions the lesson sinks in.

The Oklahoma Legislature opens Monday, February 1.

We can encourage the Missouri Legislature (http://www.moga.mo.gov/) to correct the injustice done not only to the Englhard family but to all of Missouri's gay and lesbian taxpayers. Increasing even by one the number of gay/lesbian friendly environments makes a better place for everyone to work and live.

The above are my own thoughts on the matter of gay/lesbian citizenship and are not coordinated with any political candidate, official, or party.

Box Turtle Bulletin: The inhumanity of “protecting marriage”

complete at: http://tinyurl.com/ydld3s2

In 1995 Hootie and The Blowfish were on the radio, Waterworld was stinking up the movie theaters, and Tommy Lee married Pamela Anderson. It may not have been the best of years, but it was a good year for Kelly Glossip; that’s the year he met Dennis Engelhard.

Over the next 15 years the two men built a life together. They bought and decorated a house, joined a church, and helped raise Kelly’s son from a previous relationship.

And Dennis established a career in law enforcement, earning respect as a Missouri State Highway Patrolman. Even though Missouri is not a liberal state, the two lived openly, even attending social functions with Dennis’ coworkers.

The Compatible Odd Couple

2010-01-16T10:53:00.006-06:00

Photo courtesy of http://media.funmansion.com

Heteros Tasting Their Own Medicine

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) I'm compatible with Sally Kern! Yup, you read it right. Though Kern and I are polar opposites religiously, politically, orientationally, and educationally, I'm compatible with Oklahoma GOPer Rep. Sally Kern and her newly introduced HB 2279 which, if passed, would not allow incompatibility to be used as grounds for a divorce between opposite-gendered (of course) adults.

Kern who has hyperventilated while sniffing in gay and lesbian closets has now turned her big nose to sniffing between the sheets of the hetero marriage bed. ( http://tinyurl.com/yc45mhh )

Pre-existing conditions such as minor children in the household, a marriage of ten years or longer, or written objection by the other spouse would prevent using incompatibility as grounds for an Oklahoma divorce.

I'm so compatible with Kern over her non-divorce bill I could be the son she almost had. Not only that, I'll see her bet and raise her one.

This being Oklahoma, the third hole in America's bible belt, I wouldn't bet the rent on this bill dying in committee, the fate of most of the worst of Okie legislators's submissions. Therefore, I'm proposing a bill that would take Kern's aspirations a step higher.

Since a judge, in effect, examines the two people engaged in a divorce proceeding to see if at least one of the parties has sufficient grounds for divorce, why not have a judge examine the proposed bride and groom at the beginning of the procedure when they apply for an Oklahoma marriage license? Why not head off any incompatible marriages before they become incompatible divorces?

In my bill, the hopeful newlyweds would have to prove to the examiner not only their undying love for each other but also have to prove their financial prospects are propitious, their religious beliefs are rooted in the christian bible, their educational backgrounds are conducive to a lifetime of constructive pillow talk, and above all, both parties are willing and able to produce children as fast as physically possible. A failing grade in any of these aspects would disallow the issuance of the marriage license.

If Kern wants to meddle in straight people's private affairs just as she's meddled in gay people's affairs shouldn't she be willing to fully insert the police power of the state right from the beginning of a proposed marriage? In fact, Kern should revise her divorce bill as a state question needing approval from the voters. If marriage is so important that it must be denied to same-gender taxpayers, as it is in Oklahoma, why not let straight voters police themselves?

As a staunch and starchy "kern-servative", as she bills herself, shouldn't she be strong enough to impose the state government into all aspects of married life? She claims her bill will alleviate many of Oklahoma's societal ills. She proclaims "...[I]f we could reduce divorce in Oklahoma we would also reduce our prison population and welfare rolls while benefiting families and children. That’s a goal worth pursing." ( This link includes the text of the Kern bill,
http://tinyurl.com/ydq9f9d )

She continues, "If we can lower our divorce rate, our quality of life will improve and we will also reduce the need for many state services in this time of budget shortfall, freeing up money to go to core services such as schools and roads."

Who knew that keeping children in a warring household with two unhappy parents was the solution that would help reduce Oklahoma's budget deficit? Again, Kern is using children as a shield for her schizophrenic view of privacy. Remember in 2009 she proposed and passed a legislative resolution objecting to a United Nations project to protect children from violence. If she wants to protect children from the harms of divorce, why is she against protecting children from violence? ( http://tinyurl.com/y8ujchv )

Remember the joke that was going around concerning the mock acceptance of same-gender marriage? It went something like, "Why should gays and lesbians be spared the pitfalls and expense of married life?" My new version of that joke is, "Why should straights be spared the intrusiveness of Sally Kern poking her nose into their marriages or divorces?"

Or here's another joke, this time from one of Kern's heroes, Ronald Reagan. In one of his speeches, he said poking maliciously at government programs, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." Isn't Sally Kern from the government? Is she here to help you?

Among many religious fundamentalists and political conservatives (But I repeat myself) there is the thinking that America is an exceptional country. Now I know what they mean by that. They're saying "America must play by the rules I set down, but when it's convenient, I get an exception."

In Kern's case she claims an exception for her divorce bill and its intrusive meddling in the private matrimonial affairs of adults.

Why Americans can’t admit that their society is toast

2010-01-03T12:29:00.004-06:00

graphic courtesy of http://cm1.theinsider.com/media/0/84/20/unclesam.0.0.0x0.374x500.jpeg

http://tinyurl.com/yg44ejx

Moderator's comment: I found this writer to be reading my mind. He was able, somehow, to put reasonable words together expressing my thoughts that usually leave me slobbering from inept, helpless rage at the destruction of our collective future.

I'm no tea bag fan and realize the actions of that crowd are prompted by ever more self-frustration goaded by the right-wing greed machine taking advantage of them. Bu I do understand where they're coming from.

The tea bagging tactics of threatened violence and crude explanation of our country's failure should not be allowed to lure additional victims into their clutches. But the salve of bland words and tepid legislation should no be allowed to pose as a cure for our national fever of scapegoating.

A return to plain words and definitions, the acknowledgement of civil law, equality, and social fairness would go a long way towards turning down the flames of excess that are threatening our country for everyone who lives outside a gated community.

Why Americans can’t admit that their society is toast
By Dennis Rahkonen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
http://tinyurl.com/yg44ejx

THE REINCARNATION OF THE DARK AGES

2009-12-27T12:28:00.002-06:00

–

None Dare Call It RELIGIOUS FEUDALISM - 12.27.09

complete at http://tpjmagazine.us/adams36

The king taxed the peasants to poverty while the royals were exempt from paying any. Reason? Unjust tax codes were a design of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. That was the “targeted tax-cut” which invariably became law. “He who hath the gold maketh the rules.” ...learn more>>

snip---
Consider this ominous fact: The average American’s income has remained flat since 1977 — 33 years ago, while the income of the richest 1% has more than tripled — 228% (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). CEOs (corporate executive officers) incomes rose 400% in the 1990s to $10.6 million annual income per capita, while take-home pay for the average American, the 80%, rose zero percent.

Real life experience bears it out. Most Americans don’t enjoy the purchasing power they once did when a one-income family could raise children, purchase a home, car and college education for their kids. Now both parents work (if lucky enough to have a job) and still can’t keep up, resulting in less quality education, poor family relations, rising crime, and an eroding moral foundation.

snip--
They hide their greed behind such noble causes as “individualism,” “patriotism,” “character & family values” and “national security,” but all the while their ultimate aim is the same. Proudly they wave the flag and claim to be the lead standard bearers for patriotism; all the while we recall they’re missing in action when it really counts; wealthy family ties shield them from risk. Only the rich initiate wars, mostly the poor fight them. The double standard of justice comes from obscene wealth. Principles can be compromised at a price. And so can religion, their primary weapon of choice.

In similar manner, they buy off religious organizations and congressmen, hire the best lobbyists, and manipulate enough voters through the religious system to change laws for their benefit. Their aim? To further concentrate the wealth and leave the rest of the country destitute if need be. Their “compassionate conservatism” is hypocrisy cloaked in a sound-bite.

OKC School Board a Group of Slow Learners

2009-12-15T21:41:00.004-06:00

Photo of Oklahoma City Public School teacher, Joe Quigley
courtesy of KWTV

Remedial Reading Would be Justified

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) I want to remind readers that the Oklahoma City School Board's atrocious behavior towards Joe Quigley was about trying to shut him up in order that the Board would NOT have to make the vote they made on Monday, December 14. A public apology will never happen, so the closest Quigley can come to one will be the dropping of all legal action against him brought about by the vindictive attitude of the majority of the Board.

It has taken over twelve years for this Board to acknowledge the need for GLBT-inclusive language to be added to the District's student handbook. The Board now claims it was the passage of the Shepard Hate Crime Law that prompted them to do so. A quip was made in the story below about having one's head in the sand regarding the discrimination directed at gay/lesbian students. I would suggest the collective heads of the Board have been somewhere else "where the sun don't shine."

Quigley has been found by an Oklahoma County judge to be innocent of any improper or unprofessional activities in the class room.

However, I find Gail Vines, Dist. 2 representative, to be guilty of voting twice against Quigley: the first time at Quigleys kangaroo hearing when she improperly abstained, stating to me that she felt she did not know enough about the case. For that opinion I feel she should have left the room before the vote was taken or voted in favor of Quigley because it is accepted legal precedent that in the event of doubt about guilt one does not vote against the defendant. The second time was when she voted to continue legal action against Quigley when he was found innocent of the charges brought against him by the Board, violating the spirit and intent of the trial de novo guidelines.

The negative opinion of Gail Vines who was once thought to be the sole openly gay-friendly member of the Board, and whose business, Flip's Winebar and Tratoria, is the subject of an informal boycott has been seen to be justified.

Phil Horning, who is quoted in the Oklahoman story below as saying he'd die before voting no against the inclusion of GLBT-protective language is, using his own hyperbole, to be whistling past the graveyard. I was present during Mr. Horning's vicious questioning of Quigley's attorney during the original kangaroo hearing: it was evident he had made up his mind and would not allow evidence to steer him from his course. As Minnesota Senator Al Franken said recently during debate: "We are entitled to our own opinions; we are not entitled to our own facts."

complete at: http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-city-school-board-passes-protection-for-gay-pupils/article/3425049

or http://tinyurl.com/yas2trh

Oklahoma City school board passes protection for gay pupils
Board member says the amended rule is ‘ahead of the curve’ in Oklahoma
BY MEGAN ROLLAND
Published: December 15, 2009

The bullying or harassment of gay, lesbian and transgender students in the
Oklahoma City School District will not be tolerated, school board members
said Monday with a vote amending the district’s policy.

"This is an opportunity for us to get a little bit ahead of the curve, not
very far I’ll admit,” board member Phil Horning said. "You cannot live in
central Oklahoma and not admit that there is a tendency to discriminate
against gay and lesbian individuals. You’d have to have your head in the
sand not to admit it … I’ll die before I vote no.”

complete at: http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-city-school-board-passes-protection-for-gay-pupils/article/3425049

or http://tinyurl.com/yas2trh

Uncle Proud Liberal's Guide to Handling Rightwing-Nuts Online

2009-12-06T11:17:00.001-06:00

http://ranting-liberally.blogspot.com/2009/12/uncle-pls-guide-to-handling- rightwing.html

orÂ http://tinyurl.com/yfj3sbl

Where in the Constitution is there an orientation test?

2009-12-04T16:51:00.006-06:00

Graphic from: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=35608

(OKLAHOMA CITY) Various fundie homo-hating religious denominations have been doing a great deal of proselytizing the last few years. We've all been converted by proxy whether we knew it or not. No, it's not the Mormons in this case, though they do have their own ways--that's for another story.

I'm choosing two Catholic abuse stories that got my attention recently.

By allowing far-right wing homo-haters to set beliefs taken from their religious books into the civil law books everyone in this country is an honorary member of the Catholic religion, vassals of the Pope in Vatican City.

This means all of us are party to the enabling of child abusers even as these religious corporations enjoy a vast tax-free financial fraud, endorsed by the IRS.

These tax-sheltered frauds are as crooked as Bernie Maddof has been proven to be. They have entered the public arena advocating for their particular religious dogma, using it to overturn or prevent the recognition and implementation of civil rights for all of this country's taxpaying citizens.

Where in the Constitution is there an orientation test one is required to pass in order to receive the rights, benefits, and privileges guaranteed to all citizens under the law?

However, there is a First Amendment requiring that civil law does not recognize religious dogma, period.

Below is a link to a story about a relatively cheap monetary settlement made by the diocese of Maine to close the book on one abuse case even as the diocese spent over twice that amount to make sure Catholic dogma rules the private lives of not just the gay/lesbian residents of Maine, but all of us regardless of where we live.

Joe Sudbay of http://gay.americablog.com wrote recently:

The Catholic Diocese of Maine has been doling out a lot of money lately. There was that $550,000 spent on the anti-gay campaign. And, there was another $200,000 paid to the victim of a sexually-abusing priest:

A lawyer has confirmed that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland made a $200,000 settlement on Nov. 5 with his client, who said she was molested by a priest in 1976 in the rectory of St. Michael's Church in South Berwick.

snip

The settlement money came from insurance, said Sue Bernard, spokesperson for the diocese. The diocese received its first complaint about Vallely in 1978 and took action.

Took action? The Church leaders enabled abusers for decades. Yet, these same abuse-enabling church leaders are setting social policy for America. That's sick.

( http://tinyurl.com/yd29uxb )

And then there's the stalling by the former archbishop of New York City when pressed in a deposition as to why he did nothing to investigate a child abuse complaint brought to his attention when he was a mere bishop, not a prince of the church, in Connecticut--

"Cardinal Edward M. Egan, then a Connecticut bishop, ...was questioned about cases of child molestation committed by priests under his supervision. When a lawyer taking Egan’s deposition asked why the bishop had failed to intervene immediately in cases involving complaints about a predatory priest, Egan told him, "I didn’t make a decision one way or the other. I kept working on it until I resolved the decision." " ( http://tinyurl.com/ykkwyow )

Such preaching and teaching about the sanctity of marriage from an institution that knowingly shuffled child abusers around in a holy shell game of deception is beyond the overused word of hypocrisy. It's more clearly described as a license--a permit to do what it pleases in regard to civil criminal activity, above the law, and above the clouds in their minds, wreaking emotional and physical damage on innocent people. Just how christ-like is that?

Inaugural Invocator & Oklahoma's Senior Senator Involved in Uganda's Final Solution

2009-12-02T09:18:00.005-06:00

Guernica by Picasso, painted in response to the bombing of the Spanish town of the same name by Fascists during the Spanish Civil War

Rick Warren, the invocater at Obama's inauguration, calls Uganda which is considering its own final solution to end its leaders's problem with gay people, a "purpose-driven nation".

Oklahoma's senior senator, Jim Inhofe, refuses to comment on the Uganda Parliament's final solution even as his membership in the "C" Street Family shows extensive missionary-like support for Uganda for years, at least since 1986.

History has shown that the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s was a laboratory for new war-making techniques such as the use of airplanes and bombing being developed by the Nazis. Is Uganda going to be the white man's farm team for developing public tolerance of the twisted use of the legal process to create "legal" discrimination?

Rachel Maddow has the latest lowdown on this extended threat to
gay people in Africa. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34214774#34214774

Inhofe is up to his neck in what seems to me to be influence retailing.

A news article appearing in the Oklahoman on Dec. 21, 2008, said that Inhofe had made at least 20 trips to Africa. Yet seven months prior to that story Inhofe revealed he’d just made his 97th visit to Africa. As his trips began in 1999, that averages out over the then 9-yr-period to a visit every five to six weeks instead of the twice a year trips the newspaper claims. There are other notations easily found where Inhofe recites the 97th visit claim in April 2008, so it’s unknown how the Oklahoman was so far off in their count. As Inhofe readily admits his travels to Africa are funded by American taxpayers, questions arise on the total cost of 96 such trips. The Oklahoman interviewed Inhofe for the report, so it seems odd that they would’ve gotten the number of trips and their costs so far off.

http://smack.gossip-boy.com/2009/12/01/has-sen-jim-inhofe-found-a-new-way-to-make-aids-a-death-sentence.aspx

-------------

Reporting the REAL Gay News -- Part II

2009-11-28T16:03:00.001-06:00

by Eric Payne
guest essayist

In the weeks following Milk's assassination, there was no aspect of his life, or of his aborted political agenda, that didn't get heavy play, both in the gay and mainstream press. Eventually, the story grew old for the mainstream press; the minutia of the events leading up to the trial of Milk's assassin, Dan White, just didn't have the "stuff" of newsworthiness at a national level. The trial, itself, was a different matter, but all the little stuff leading up to it - the arraignment, the continuances, the defense attorney motions, the DA's motions... none of it really mattered, except to us; our fag rags came into their own as newspapers, then, both on a local and national level. The publications in major outlets - New York, SF, LA, Miami, Philadelphia and others - began subscribing to the Associated Press and United Press International news feeds. There was neither a political local race or local news story, in any state, that featured any sort of "gay component" that didn't receive coverage in our media - it was important to our publishers that their readers knew if a music teacher in, say, Davenport, IA, had been removed from their position due to that teacher's "sexual preference." If a local community in, for instance, Bangor, MA, wanted to adopt or repeal gay rights ordinances, the gay press picked up on it. The rags were on their way to becoming real, honest-to-goodness newspapers.

Except...

Milk's death received tens of thousands of column inches, just in San Francisco's two weeklies, alone - if the references to his death, up to today, were included, that total would likely jump to hundreds of thousands of column inches. And while the weeklies - Bob Ross' "Bay Area Reporter" and Ray Chalker's "San Francisco Sentinel" - were striving to become real news outlets, including editorial content and individualized, by-lined regular columns (everything from "life in the bars" to "week-in-review" type columns), there was one area that had been purposely omitted from the gay newspapers.

Obituaries.

Most gay newspapers simply didn't run them; noted public persons who died and were either gay, or labeled as "gay-friendly," were the subjects of hard-news stories about their lives. There was no section where deaths of just your average, everyday gay person could have their passing away noted, and their life briefly memorialized. After Milk's death, requests for inclusions of someone's obituary began rolling in, but the publishers simply ignored them; the papers were still caught between being party of the fun-loving bar scene and being a committed news outlet.

Then Bob Ross began noticing the numbers picking up... mostly of men... primarily in their mid 30s, who were living in Alameda, or San Jose, or Santa Clara, or Livermore, or Walnut Creek, or any of a hundred towns scattered across the San Francisco Bay Area; all of them were dying from pneumonia... or skin cancer... or simply wasting away. Ross began running an obituary page in 1980, but uncomfortable with actually writing the obituaries, ran, verbatim, those submissions given the paper by loved ones/friends/next-of-kin. In the 29 years since that first obituary, there has not been an issue published that has not contained at least one obituary. Other community newspapers followed his lead, and nationwide, the actual toll of unknown-pathogen related deaths in the gay community began being known with more clarity.

(SIDE NOTE: I've just become aware that beginning December 1st - World AIDS Day - the entirety of the BAR's obituaries library will be made available online.)

Randy Shilts not only followed those obituaries, but frequently had first-hand knowledge of those lost; after all, everyone seemed to know each other. Everyone went to the same sex clubs and bathhouses. In a way, everyone had either slept directly with each other, or with someone who had slept with that other person. As he later wrote, somewhere in the back of his brain, he'd already put two-and-two together, and immediately stopped going to the sex clubs and the bathhouses. He began a series of articles, in the San Francisco "Chronicle" about the decimation of the gay community in San Francisco and the possibility of some unknown pathogen; at almost the same time, the "New York Times" began its own "investigative reporting" into the same issue, but on the East Coast. If one were to go back and read the stories coming from both coasts, today, they'd immediately see a difference between the editorial outlook of the two series that either went unseen at the time or, more likely, was seen, but ignored. Randy's pieces (out of which would eventually grow "And The Band Played On") were about an unknown pathogen killing people; the NYT articles were about an unknown pathogen killing GAY people.

Even though the NIH (National Instutes for Health) and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) did their initial investigations in San Francisco, based on the overwhelming number of deaths in the Bay Area, these two federal government agencies allowed the tone of the NYT series to set the parameters for their investigation a pathogen; the federal government looked for what sexual activities were prevalent in the gay community that were not normally practiced in the heterosexual community that would allow for transmission of this unknown pathogen. At first, the federal government decided it was the much more common use of amyl nitrate as a stimulant in the gay community; that theory never bore fruit, but it didn't matter. Gay men quit using "poppers." The chemical composition of "poppers" today is not that of amyl nitrate, but some other compound. Then, the feds decided it was the practice of fisting; which would later become the prevalence of the practice of anal sex - without ever explaining how anal sex between two men could cause the creation of this pathogen, but anal sex between a man and a woman couldn't.

Instead of running wild rumors, the gay press became... well... RESPONSIBLE, and didn't waste column inches on government conspiracies to kill gay men, nor did the press simply run, unchallenged, the press releases of the fed's health agencies. The gay papers had staff reporters, now those staff reporters turned to national, eminent, medical researchers, asking those researchers to comment on the press releases of the CDC and NIH. When there were no treatments coming from the government, the press began covering local mens' groups who, with or without the assistance of a medical professional, were using themselves as guinea pigs to test certain medicines, and combinations of medicines, to fight some malady that didn't even have an official name. The gay press began counting the dead, and from issue to issue, became more bold in holding the government responsible for that death to some degree, if just because the presumed contagious pathogen had not even yet been identified, or named. Then, for a brief period of time, it got named - and suddenly, every news outlet in the nations was all over the story, almost three full years since the BAR's first obituary.

GRIDS. Gay Related Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Some unknown pathogen was destroying the immune systems of gay men; they were dying of infections and illnesses to which the human race had long since built immunity, as a species. The name didn't last long; when a woman in NJ was discovered to have the same symptoms, and that woman was identified as heterosexual, the name was changed to AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. But for some, even today, GRIDS it was, and GRIDS it shall be, forever and ever, amen (even though those same people will argue there is no biological component to being gay; yet them wanting to believe it's all a "gay disease" should make them see they're saying there is a biologic component all (or a majority of) gay men share that allows for this pathogen to "turn on.").

During the early days of the AIDS crisis, the gay press - for lack of a better term - found their balls. Reporters for the gay press asked the tough questions; the mainstream press watched thoughtfully, then followed up with tough questions of their own. Very, very little was allowed to be swept under the rug; both the gay and mainstream media tore apart then-President Ronald Reagan's National Institutes of Health for AIDS-related funding, and the administration attempting to label cancer research as "AIDS research." The NIH was vilified in all press outlets for building a human research facility for which the guidelines for admission in the program were so severe (a candidate for admission must be at Point A in the presumption of illness, but not at Point B), that no human ever qualified for admission into the study. It was the sheer single-mindedness of the gay press that changed FDA policy concerning experimental drug medication on human subjects, allowing GRIDS/AIDS patients to become human guinea pigs for the drug companies. No official, anywhere, was allowed to escape scrutiny. If a religious based organization, such as the Catholic Church, received a grant in Boston, MA, to care for "x" number of AIDS patients, the gay newspapers in Hawaii demanded a recounting by the Church of exactly what it did, for whom, and what the outcome of the research/care was.

The gay press - the gay and lesbian newspaper reporters - were aggressive. Press releases were no longer even nearly enough. Personal statements were demanded; those personal statements were going to be run by other experts to be either confirmed or called into question. Everyone was being affected; everyone knew someone who had died, knew someone who was dying... or was dying themselves. There was, simply, no more time to stand on the sidelines and wait to be asked to dance; we headed out onto the dance floor on our own and made it our own.

And this is about where I entered the picture. I do not place myself on the same level of Randy Shilts; I was merely one of the thousands of people for whom he paved the way. In his later years, between "Band" and "Conduct Unbecoming," I would meet Randy; we became correspondence friends (which became much easier with the advent of email!), and I miss him to this very day.

I wrote, simply, news stories. Beginning with the local fag-rag in San Jose - "Our Paper/Your Paper" - which attempted to be an "all encompassing" periodical, to keep the straight/gay mix of the advertisers happy, I'm afraid when I came along, that balancing act couldn't be maintained anymore. Funnily enough, more of our gay advertisers - businesses that were either gay owned or gay managed - flew the coop than did our straight advertisers. One of the first things I investigated was a nasty practice of one of our advertisers (gay owned travel agent) who actually charged gay customers more for the same vacation packages being offered to heterosexuals. I forget the bizarre reasoning of the owner of that agency at the time - something about there being more straight vacationers than gay vacationers... whatever it was, it was utter bull - and I wrote about it. And my publisher published it; page one, above the fold. After that, I was off on a run, becoming free-lance; ultimately balancing hard news with two opinion columns (that ran in contrasting weeks) entitled "Payneful Realities" and "AIDSpeak." I self-killed "Speak" with the publication of its December 31st, 1995 column. Six months later, I killed "Realities," then, a year after that, left writing altogether. I couldn't do it anymore; I was simply burnt out. In that last "year end" "Speak" column, I culled the previous year for AIDS related news, not even knowing how I would be putting that last column together. Then I had an idea, and searched for news articles concerning AIDS in 1985 - a full ten years earlier, and the first year of the identifiable "AIDS epidemic." I was able to match headlines from 1985 with news stories from 1995, so that's what I ran - a column that said, essentially: "So, looking back over the last year, we have..." then giving the headline, followed by a brief description of the news item itself. In what some editors considered to be the closing paragraph, I revealed my ruse - that the news items had come from 1995, while the headlines came from news stories of 1985... that nothing had changed. And some editors, as I said, cut the column there. The column actually went on, another 11 paragraphs. The first paragraph was short - "So, in ten years, the only concrete, incontrovertible news about AIDS is:"

Each paragraph of the next ten paragraphs represented one year of the 1985-1995 decade, and listed the names of persons who had been openly identified as having died of AIDS or AIDS-related illness during each of those calendar years. It was this column for which I was nominated for a few awards; of the four, I won three of them.

I asked the hard questions, of everyone. At some point in my writing career, I interviewed everyone from a San Jose bathhouse owner who had recently lost his first lover to AIDS, to the Republican Governor of California who had vetoed a piece of gay rights legislation he had promised to sign into law when campaigning for office just six months previously. No one got a free pass. I was aggressive. I was persuasive. I was loved. I was loathed. I loved every second of it; I hated every minute of it.

But we're now back in a cycle where gay newspaper reporters believe there's nothing more to report than the press release, because there's a self-proclaimed "gay advocate" in the White House. We have reporters who are simply happy to be invited to sit at the kids table this Thanksgiving after, metaphorically speaking, being forced to eat in the garage with the dog for the previous eight years.

Passive or aggressive? I can't answer that, except to say I have no doubt, had I been toiling in the profession for the last nine years, I'd still be in someone's face demanding to know the answers to certain questions... attempting to pin any lawmaker I could find, at any level, to the floor on their true stance concerning marriage equality. Every legislature with whom I spoke would still be being peppered with questions asking that law-maker if they believed allowing the citizenry of a state - ANY state - to deny civil rights to another section of the state's citizenry was permitted under the Constitution of the United States? I'd want to know from the previous President's press liaison office how a homosexual prostitute had been given a set of White House Press Corps credentials when simple individual questions from real reporters were routinely ignored? And I'd want to know from the current President if he would have expected America's women, or blacks, to simply say "oh, okay. Whatever you say," if they were told "the time isn't right" to give them equal rights.

At last, some of the mainstream media are beginning to ask those questions; too often, though, the mainstream simply accepts the rote and trite answers given... and look at the gay and lesbian press with disdain when the issue is pressed.

The cycle's beginning again; the gay community is in for a lot of collective pain before we get our balls back; the mainstream media isn't going to give a damn about us - and will even paint us, as a whole, negatively, until we find the brass ones, again.

We're not going to find our balls again through passivity.

And, just like an email from Randy saying "do you believe this crap?", I miss it. I miss being on thatt edge, every single day.

Pioneering REAL Gay News Reporting -- Part I

2009-11-28T15:50:00.003-06:00

Illustration from: http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/robert-jensen-teaching-journalism-with.html
by Eric Payne
guest essayist

Since for over 15 years I was (and here, I tout my own horn, for which I apologize in advance) an award-winning free-lance writer, specializing in "gay news," I might take a stab at answering your question...

When I began in "the gay press," most publications were simply a collection of press releases reformatted to fit the pages of that specific periodical. Sure, there were a few "gay papers" that utilized new material by free-lance writers - The "Bay Area Reporter," the "San Francisco Sentinel," "Frontiers" (in Southern California), the "Village Voice" (yes, though now "mainstream," the VV was once considered a "fag rag"), and a few other scattered newspapers/magazines around the country. But those periodicals (outside of the VV) existed, primarily, to showcase the "pornographic" advertisements that supported their publications. The industry's thinking was: Since the rags are distributed in the bars, no one's going to concern themselves with actually reading it; the text is just something to hide behind while checking out the hot guys, both the ones in the bar, and the ones in the ads offering in- and out-call services.

Fag rags were just another element of the whole bar scene; just one more cog in the gears of the "I want to get laid!" gear. None of the rags considered themselves a serious journalistic effort. Their advertisers simply cared about the number of copies distributed. The writers normally focused on local, special events - nearly all of which were held in one of the bars that distributed the paper.

Then, almost simultaneously, Harvey Milk, Anita Bryant and Randy Shilts happened... and all three were game changers.

There's not a lot about Milk and Bryant that hasn't been already said, but the emergence of both as news stories in a very short period of time made the rags in the bars seem completely superfluous. Suddenly, the younger gay men in the bars wanted to know what they weren't seeing in the "real" news outlets. After several unsuccessful runs at political office (almost ANY political office, it seemed) in the City of San Francisco, it appeared Harvey Milk might actually get elected to public office. The very thought that an out-of-the-closet gay man might get enough votes - without even once apologizing for being homosexual, can you believe it? - made the election of a lowly City Supervisor a national news story. In California, on that election night in 1977, it seemed the only political race in California that had any importance, at all, was the City Supervisor race in San Francisco.

And the San Francisco "gay press," created itself, almost solely to follow Milk's race. Suddenly, there was a political candidate who was not afraid to give a "sit-down" to a gay newspaper reporter; though he was "one of ours," writers became emboldened, and began requesting interviews of other candidates; the reporters began requesting and obtaining "official" press credentials, allowing them access to press conferences. Newspaper editors - primarily Bob Ross, of the Bay Area Reporter - began realizing the little pieces of fluff they'd been turning out could actually make an impact with their readers and the community as a whole. Almost overnight, the formats for the major weeklies changed - once one-sections, with ads and press releases interspersed, the papers grew. News was printed in the first section, peppered with "regular" advertisements; there appeared a completely separate second section, housing the advertisements of a "sexual" nature. Press releases that ran unchanged were pushed to the last half of the front section, the first half of the news section was given over to free-lance writers. The scope of the free-lancers had changed from "what's going on in the bars" to "what's going on in the state/country/world, and how does that affect us?". The editors of the newspapers began publishing their own opinions, as well as inviting others to share their opinions via letters to the paper, or guest opinion columns - though, admittedly, in the late 1970s, those opinions almost always coincided with the opinions of the editor(s). It was their game, after all, and they were beginning to enjoy playing it.

At almost exactly the same time, nationwide, the political climate changed to a vehemently "anti-gay" viewpoint (a reaction to an unrepentant fairy being popular enough to be elected, maybe?), and two other people bubbled out of the soup, the presence of whom helped define the "gay press" as it exists, today.

One was former runner-up beauty queen Anita Bryant, who didn't seem to understand the concept of heterosexuals giving birth to homosexuals and, thus, "creating" them, but believed there was some secret chain of hidden recruiting offices, nationwide, in which older, experienced homosexuals seduced unwilling young, strapping, heterosexual males into a deviant lifestyle. She stepped into the national spotlight, in an already gay-depressive political climate, and created the model for how gays are treated, politically, that still exists. "It's all about the children!" she'd cry... to anyone that would listen. Unfortunately, those people that would listen were ABC, CBS, NBC, the AP and UPI, and, really, just about any politician, anywhere in the country, at any level of government. Harvey Milk saw the threat she created; he made the gay press aware just how dangerous her rantings could be, and some of the publishers of the nascent "gay newspaper" industry not only editorialized about the Orange Juice Queen in their local rags, they deposited themselves, physically, in Florida to, first-hand, help fight the "gay rights repeal" she'd helped place on the ballot in Miami-Dade County. Unfortunately, the measure passed. Yet the rags created a spin - the measure didn't pass by nearly the numbers it had been expected to pass. The important thing, though, was that it DID pass, and set equal rights for the homosexually oriented back to 1960s level (basically, "keep it secret, perv, or you're going to jail!").

In that same period of time, the "Bay Area Reporter" had become the preeminent fag-rag in San Friancisco, if not the country. Bob Ross, the publisher of the B.A.R., decided he liked publishing a real information outlet, as opposed to just another bar fag-rag, and placed a make-or-break gamble. Submissions from free-lancers were going to be both fact-checked and edited. No longer were items going to be published simply to fill space; if he needed to, he would fill that empty space with a graphic, or a donated advertisement. While still being receiving a pay commensurate with the published column inches, free-lancers were expected to abide by the rules of journalism. Those writers who didn't know what those rules might be were told what they were. If a writer had an opinion, the writer was invited to submit a guest column - but "news stories" being built around those opinions were no longer acceptable.

But Ross's biggest gamble was to hire, in 1976, his first staff news reporter, Randy Shilts. Shilts had graduated from the University of Oregon's jouranlism school in 1975. While in college, he won awards for his editorship of the school's newspaper; he also, publicly, "came-out" as a gay man, running for election for class office with the slogan "Come out for Shilts."

He lost.

But when he graduated, Shilts relocated from Eugene, OR, to the Bay Area of California because of the attention the Bay Area had received from the national press during Milk's campaign for City Supervisor, and Randy despised that the attention given to the Bay Area as a whole was so heavy-handed and so blatantly violated the rules of ethical journalism. When he graduated, and hit "The City," Randy began sending his resume and tear-sheets to the major dailies in the area, everything from the San Francisco "Chronicle" to the daily in Tracy, CA (70 miles east), the San Jose "Mercury," (50 miles south), and those dailies in the North and far-North Bay area. Each and every one rejected him.

Randy wanted to write with the perspective of a homosexual, but adhere that writing to the rules of journalism: who, what, when, where, why and how. He wanted to write from "the other side," and have his material - which he strove to make fair and balanced; if he felt he couldn't, he self-killed many a presumptive start - seen by as many people as possible. He didn't want his material to "make a difference," so much as he, himself, wanted to make the difference in creating material that simply caused the reader to think. He just wanted to be a reporter. Bob Ross gave him that chance.

Later, in the early 80s, when for a brief period of time "going gay" was the rule for newsrooms, nationwide, the San Francisco Chronicle would hire both Shilts and Armistead Maupin - and the two represented the two sides of the "gay press" coin. Shilts remained, even in his later best-selling books on Harvey Milk, the early days of the AIDS epidemic and the treatment of gays and lesbians in the United States military, the newspaper reporter, presenting facts to his readers, letting his readers do their own thinking and drawing their own conclusions.

Maupin was the stereotypical gay-man-bitch-queen in his newspaper columns which introduced the characters of an apartment house on the fictional Barbary Lane in San Francisco; not only was Maupin a stereotype but so, too, were his characters: an aging iconoclastic landlord, an effeminate out gay man, a conservative white woman, a hippie who might (or might not) be a lesbian, the sex-addicted white man and, lastly, the creepy child molester (complete with belted rain/trench coat). Maupin was the safe side of having an "out" homosexual writer - he stuck to to the pictures and preconceptions most had of homosexual men and women.

I've always found the dichotomy of both Randy and Maupin as best selling authors to be a bit... humorous. But that's just me.

And, then... tragedy. On a massive, world-wide scale.

Milk was assassinated and, once again, the world press focused on Bay Area politics. If an out gay man being elected to local office was "news," then that same man being gunned down in his office must be news-worthy, as well. In the one year since his election - possibly because a straight, white male politician had been killed, as well - the tone changed. Milk's killing, and his life, were actually reported with respect and dignity. His photograph was no longer being televised, side-by-side with pictures of "Dykes on Bikes" or "The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence." Layered on that was the fact Milk knew, at the time of his election, there was only one way his term of office was going to end; the release of tape-recordings Milk began making the night after his election that dealt with how he wished the public would react when "that bullet enters (his) brain," and even Milk's political prescience was given its fair due. He was suddenly, in the news media, a politician riding the forefront of a national viewpoint that would, one day, be a litmus test for every political candidate, at all levels of government.

GLBT News: Aggressive or Passive?

2009-11-26T19:00:00.004-06:00

Graphic from: http://www.walyou.com/img/old-manual-typewriters-robot-art-sculptures-1.jpg

(OKLAHOMA CITY) On a google group I subscribe to there was a discussion of how aggressive an Oklahoma-based GLBT online news page should be in its reporting of GLBT news in Oklahoma and whether the depiction of straight women as stereotypes with photo-shopped pictures is appropriate.

I would like to suggest that whatever is developing in the way of a "non-controversial" (?) alternative to www.Gossip-boy.com
is not some extension of the fawning obeisance to religion that passes in Oklahoma as "progressive politics". I appreciate the no-holds-barred attitude of Gossip-boy.

Those who object to the treatment of straight women on Gossip-boy should, it seems to me, be objecting as well to the depiction of drag queens as an icon of our community. Drag is not a barb to women but represents the playing out of the stereotyped belief of many straights that most gay men want to be women. I get the symbolic nature of the impersonation even though I find it personally belittling to gay men who haven't the faintest desire to cross-dress and are secure in their own egos. But that's an exercise in diversity, isn't it?

My point is that are we going to use all the tools we can legally, or are we going to wring our hands and worry over being seen as rude?

I ask that we not confuse the hard news section of Gossip-boy with the satirical Smack column written by "Hunter". The news articles give us information about the machinations and backstage plans of the homo-haters that the main stream media in Oklahoma, or nationally, will never touch. I'd put Gossip-boy's investigative success up against that of even Rachel Madow any day, any time.

By devoting itself to Oklahoma, Gossip-boy is able to put the magnifying glass on the legislative and social labyrinth that is working tirelessly to put us either back in the figurative old closet or in a literal new grave.

It's true that occasionally one of my own articles is posted on Gossip-boy for which I receive only the by-line and nothing in compensation so my defense of the news section of Gossip-boy is not of a fiduciary character. It's my impression that Gossip-boy has more than once been threatened with violence from some of the subjects of its stories. I doubt there are very many GLBT people in Oklahoma willing to do this. Where Gossip-boy gets its money I don't know but I'm more than glad the homo-haters are being exposed in all their viciousness, without the sugar-coating of religion and politesse we get from straight news sources. Who else knows what it's like to be gay/lesbian in "Oklahoma, America" than we ourselves?

I contend that it's the use of religion as either a defensive or offensive weapon that has made being gay/lesbian in this country the pariah class that we are. No gay/lesbian citizen should have to beg for the civil rights and equality that is already ours as a birthright of our citizenship. As Dan Barker of the Freedom from Religion Foundation ( www.FFRF.org ) said in his recent Oklahoma appearances, when religion and government mingle, they both get dirty. I'm not interested in using the tools of the oppressors to somehow liberate us gays/lesbians from one form of apartheid and then subject us to the other side of the same coin.

If any sort of GLBT news source is under consideration, it should consist of nearly all recognized and OUT GLBTs if it's going to have any credibility.

Religion is not the panacea as its adherents on either side of divisive issues like to describe it. The imposition of religious dogma retards thought and research. Just as religion was used to silence Renaissance philosophers and nascent scientists that the earth was flat and the center of the observable universe, why would such a Bronze-age frame of thinking be used to influence the acknowledgment that gay/lesbian citizens are just the same under the law as heteros?

The society of pharonic Egypt was farther along with the true nature of the solar system than Renaissance Europe. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ ) The Greek, Eratosthenes, working in Egypt, unencumbered by threat of excommunication or flaming death from the civil authorities corrupted by religion was able to measure the circumference of the Earth to an astonishing degree of accuracy for his time.

There is a difference in the exaggerated and/or fabricated lies told about us GLBTs by the homo-haters and the plain and pointed truth as exposed by Gossip-boy. The real threats against our citizenship are too far advanced to quibble over the nuts-and-bolts of journalistic technique.

We already have an alternative to Gossip-boy in the Oklahoma four-state area and that's the Metro Star. ( http://www.metrostarnews.com ) Though a monthly print newspaper, it has a website that uses media alerts for major breaking news stories.

As far as I'm concerned we can use both, and more, of these outlets for investigative news about our Oklahoma GLBT equality fight.

Guest essay: America Before Roe v. Wade

2009-11-22T20:40:00.003-06:00

illustration from: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_11-nzoYFuQU/R5UgFGABdVI/AAAAAAAABzc/dlO-eUSPmMc/s400/Roe+v+Wade+hanger.gif

Few women now of childbearing age will remember the time when abortion in America was illegal. As much as some might want you to think otherwise, it was hardly a glorious time of sexual abstinence. Women, whether married or unmarried, had unwanted pregnancies and sometimes resorted to folk or even quack “remedies”. Unknown and untraceable abortionists operated from back-alleys, kitchen tables, and rented rooms—with few guarantees of medical knowledge, professional conduct, or even basic hygiene, and with no threat of a medical malpractice lawsuit if (or when) things went horribly wrong.

The men of that era who fathered an unwanted pregnancy often responded to such news with, “How do you know it’s mine?” Fortunately, if abortion is recriminalized, with modern DNA techniques such questions will be easily answered, particularly when the issue of child support arises.

Since abortion (and, in many states, contraception) was illegal, women whose procedures were botched were at great pains to hide what had happened. A trip to the hospital to treat symptoms like massive bleeding or infection could have been tantamount to an admission of guilt. Thus, official statistics of deaths resulting from illegal abortion would undoubtedly be vastly understated and unreliable.

As another holiday season approaches, families will gather together and retell each other their stories. What about that aunt or sister or cousin (or the dear friend from high school or college) who died suddenly, or is the “black sheep” of the family—the one who’s only spoken of in hushed tones? Was she one of “the girls who went away”: to an out-of-state abortionist or a home for unwed mothers? Did she put a “love child” up for adoption, willingly or otherwise? Has she felt the shame and guilt of her family and society ever since? (On this topic, I give great thanks to Ann Fessler, author of the powerful book, The Girls Who Went Away, and those who shared their stories with her.)

These were far more common occurrences than realized today—and they never found their way into the dinner table discussions on “Leave it to Beaver”, “Ozzie and Harriett”, or “Father Knows Best”. Ask your older relatives while you still can (the National Day of Listening is the Friday after Thanksgiving). You might be surprised at what you learn from your own family history and you might help release a dear relative from a private, personal prison.

No, Americans didn’t wake up one day and decide it would be fun to destroy fetuses. After decades of painful, bloody experience, we decided to stop forcing women with unwanted pregnancies to put themselves in deadly danger.

Eddy Collins
Norman, OK

Religious Right is Demanding Special Rights

2009-11-21T21:27:00.003-06:00

Graphic at: http://www.miketidmus.com/blog/2009/11/20/a-declaration-of-obsolescence/

(OKLAHOMA CITY) They should be able to recognize special rights as that's what they say we GLBTs are wanting. I want, and I think other GLBTs want, just plain civil equality, no fancy dress, no special treatment, just the same privileges straight people get with no questions asked.

But the bible-humpers want a special right to pick and choose which laws passed by elected legislatures they will follow, even as they already enjoy the special tax-free, IRS-granted right to avoid helping pay for the society they enjoy.

However, with the recent proclamation called "Manhattan Declaration" that fans the flames of slow-burning bigots and gives notice to state and federal governments to expect civil disobedience from the church militant, the hairy beasts of bigotry have surely trapped themselves in another hair-splitting, how-many-angels- dance-on- a-pin conundrum.

Here's the link to one of the clearest explanations I've come across that spells out the hypocrisy of the holy harangers as they take tax money as government contractors for social services, yet want to maintain their ivory tower aloofness from the same civil laws we heathens must observe.

complete at: http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2009/11/4893/ or
http://tinyurl.com/y93k8el

EXCERPT: This would be the same Catholic church that recently announced it would stop feeding the homeless in Washington D.C. if it had to obey D.C. laws forbidding discrimination against gay citizens. Let me say a couple things about this: first, if you take tax money you have to abide by the strings attached to it. There isn’t a government contractor who doesn’t understand how this relationship works. I know, because I have worked in that environment myself. This isn’t religious persecution, it’s called accountability. And the government isn’t accountable to the pulpit, it’s accountable to the pews. It’s their money gentlemen, not yours. Not until it goes into a collection plate anyway.

...if you run a business or operate a public service, you have to abide by this nation’s civil rights laws. This isn’t a new argument…we’ve been having it for ages. Where is the line between the bigot’s freedom to be a bigot and the nation’s promise of liberty and justice to all?

....you are not being asked to “bless” anything. Just do the work or provide the services you contracted with the government to do with its money

complete at: http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2009/11/4893/ or
http://tinyurl.com/y93k8el

Oklahoma Homo-Haters Trying Their Best for an Arrest

2009-11-20T13:28:00.003-06:00

Testing Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Law

(Oklahoma City) Two Oklahoma City fundies, wanting to get a larger share of the bigger bigot spotlight got just that this past Monday, November 16, in Washington, DC. The only thing is that the bigger share wasn't very bright, nor did it succeed in getting them arrested, charged, or cuffed as was their fond hope. Their martyrdom for the Eternal Light will have to wait another day.

Dr. Steve Kern, husband of terorrist-snifer GOPer Rep. Sally Kern, along with Paul Blair, devoted homo-hater, were hoping to get arrested. Their public attempt at civil disobedience looked more like a childish temper tantrum resulting from their pique with Congress passing the Shepard/Byrd Hate Crime Law. http://www.olivetbaptistokc.com/ , http://tinyurl.com/yr63qo

Paul Blair of Edmond, Oklahoma, is quoted in all his goodness talking about marriage, but the Shepard/Byrd Hate Crimes Law is not about marriage, it's about inciting violence and targeting individuals as scapegoats for the superstition and fears of mentally unhealthy people who organize public rallies to drum up money and support from similarly hood-winked adults. http://fairviewbaptistedmond.org/

But the self-styled "Pastor" Blair was ejected in October from a parochial high school football game for objectionable language used towards a student player from the opposing team. Just what could a Man of Gee-sus have said to a high-school boy to get the speaker ejected by the referee? http://gossip-boy.com/Blair_Ejected.html

This story from the Washington Post quotes these charlatans in all their illiterateness about the Shepard/Byrd Law. http://tinyurl.com/ydelkkj

After reading their remarks it would seem that biblical devotion to literalness and inerrancy precludes the ability to read, interpret, and understand this section of the law, Sec. 10: paragraphs 3 and 4, which protects freedom of speech as long as that speech is within legally accepted parameters such as not inciting illegal acts of violence. http://tinyurl.com/y97awf6

But then, we know that bible fundies aren't really interested in truth, but just in maintaining their flat-earth dream world made in their own image.

More photos of the participants and their gay-hate rally can be seen here as well more commentary from www.Gossip-boy.com, an Oklahoma City-based GLBT news source. http://gossip-boy.com/DC_Hate_Rally.html