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Paul Babeu: I’m Gay

Feb 20, 12 2:56 AM

I try not to write about an issue immediately when it’s an emotional one. I’ve done it before and said things that I still regret.

Just a day and a half ago, though, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu – an outspoken conservative and champion of immigration enforcement – came out as gay. He was forced to. This week, a “newspaper” known to Arizonans as a sensationalist rag called the Phoenix New Times printed a front-page story about a man known only as Jose who told a sordid tale of a scorned gay lover and the object of his affection, who apparently cheated. That lover was Paul Babeu. Pictures of the two together as well as text messages and screen shots of Babeu’s profile on a gay dating website – along with photos sent privately, not meant to ever be published – were added as proof that at least some of the allegations were true.

The problem is that one allegation reeks to high heaven – the most potentially damning of all, that Babeu personally threatened his ex with deportation if he ever said anything to the public about their relationship. It has been repeated so many times at this point that the media can’t even report it correctly.

The short version goes something like this: in 2006, Babeu and Jose met through online dating profiles. Jose wasn’t just a boyfriend – he also became an active volunteer for Babeu’s campaign, creating and maintaining the main website as well as accounts on Twitter and Facebook. At some point in 2010, Jose began to suspect that Babeu was cheating on him and set up a fake profile on a gay dating website to lure Babeu into telling the truth. Babeu sent photos of himself to a phantom named “Matt” – Jose incognito – photos of himself in his underwear and apparently of his erect genetalia. The photos were supposed to be private communication; they weren’t sent through major social media, they were sent through personal cell phones. Eventually Jose showed up at what was supposed to be the dinner liaison with Matt and Babeu realized he was caught.

Things only went downhill from there. Before all of that, Jose practically stalked Babeu. The very text messages meant to prove Jose’s story show that he showed up at Babeu’s house on multiple occasions and told Babeu he wouldn’t leave until he got home. Jose admitted to posting damaging comments on news stories about the Sheriff, even at one point saying point-blank that Babeu was gay and maintained a profile on a gay dating website. After the breakup, Jose was caught breaking into and posting on the Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as setting up another website – paulbabeu.co, now defunct – to humiliate him.

Here’s where the story gets a little fuzzy.

Jose says that Babeu’s lawyer, Chris DeRose, demanded that he sign a non-disclosure statement and immediately hand over control of Babeu’s profiles on social networking sites as well as shut down the fake site and never breathe a word about the relationship in public again. That is at least partially true as evidenced by Babeu’s own release of the document. What cannot be proven is the accusation that DeRose, not Babeu himself, tried to tell Jose that his visa was expired and further disclosure could result in deportation.

In the PNT story, the writer says that Jose’s lawyer “confirmed” the story as legitimate. What I can’t understand is how that lawyer can possibly confirm the account since she wasn’t present for the conversation where the accusations allegedly took place. Jose didn’t retain his attorney until after the supposed threat was made. The attorney cannot confirm anything as far as I can tell, and no documentation proving the allegation has been provided.

The original article is outrageously one-sided. Plenty of known anti-Babeu and anti-enforcement figures are quoted, but not a single Babeu supporter is represented. All the writer says is that Babeu refused to comment. The writer also says that Jose decided to approach PNT to get his story of fear and intimidation out to the public…why PNT? Why not state or federal authorities? If there’s proof, such a threat would sound the death knell of Babeu’s time in politics because it could be criminal. Babeu, for his part, says that he had every confidence that Jose was here legally and never questioned his status and he brings up a very valid point: a Sheriff has no authority to deport anybody.

There’s another twist to the story: Monica Alonzo, the writer, has a long history of supporting pro-immigrant and other very liberal issues. She’s not exactly an unbiased source.

I knew for a long time that Babeu was probably gay. My gaydar is famous among my friends; I knew, even though I never would have said so, that he was likely gay from the beginning. I am happy that he has come out but the method used to bring it about wasn’t mere coercion. It was brute force that dragged him out and I don’t think it was anyone’s business. Am I disappointed that he cheated on his boyfriend? Sure. I’ve also been disappointed to hear of friends and relatives who have done far worse (including one who slept with a married man and felt no remorse). Babeu isn’t married and trying to carry on a fallacy of a relationship to hide his orientation. He simply chose not to be open about it. As much as I would like the gay conservatives serving silently in politics and public safety would come out, I also believe it is their right to keep it quiet.

I don’t believe that Babeu threatened his ex with deportation. I’m definitely not willing to condemn the man over private photos sent over private lines of communication that never should have been released. I find it reprehensible that Jose would find a way to try to ruin Babeu. After reading everything I could find, I’m close to certain that this is character assassination carried out by a jilted ex-lover who couldn’t get over it. I’ve been hurt, too, and I cannot imagine doing that to another person out of spite.

UPDATE: it’s important that I let the readers know that I do not personally know Paul Babeu and did not solicit a comment from his office; this is purely an opinion piece. That said, while I applaud the Sheriff for telling the truth, I do not expect him to become an activist for gay conservatives. Whether or not he does is up to him, and all of us here at gayconservative.org will support whatever decision he makes. I only hope he will continue doing the exemplary job he has always done.

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Whose Morality?

Feb 17, 12 3:19 AM

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz came out swinging today in an interview on Megyn Kelly’s show on Fox News (H/T to Doug Powers for the link). While talking about the Obamacare mandate that all health insurance for women cover birth control, DWS claimed that “there needs to be a balance” between religious employers who object to the use of contraceptives and the employees who don’t agree. Apparently the Democrats believe it is up to them what employers are willing to cover, religious affiliation be damned.

The First Amendment holds no sway any longer.

The argument has been over the healthcare mandate and the requirement that any insurance that covers women also cover contraceptives, regardless of whether that woman is a lesbian not planning to have children or a woman who has had a hysterectomy and is physically incapable of having children. It also does not take religious beliefs into account. Catholics have always considered contraceptives of any kind a sin. The Catholic Church also runs many hospitals and assisted-living facilities all over the country and have never offered health insurance that covers contraceptives. It has never been an issue until now – now that the Democrats have required every single health insurance policy covering women to cover contraceptives. Democrats are refusing to back down.

The most incredible quote from DWS of all, though, is this: “The flip side of this is that religious institutions shouldn’t be imposing their values, necessarily, on their employees who don’t necessarily subscribe to those values.”

Basically, in saying this for the DNC, she’s saying that it’s perfectly okay for them to impose their values on the entire country, but it’s completely unacceptable for anyone else to do that.

It seems we are locked in a never-ending battle between conservatives and liberals. Both sides believe they are correct in their worldview. Both sides have been angry and defensive at some point or another. Although I have experienced a great deal more vitriol from liberals, I’ve certainly heard of vitriol coming from the right (usually from those as closed-minded and uneducated as those on the far left; of course, I’ve never met a person who came to any extreme beliefs through being educated and keeping an open mind, nor have I met an extremist who admitted to being extreme).

The thing that makes me scratch my head is that both sides think they’re right for the same reasons – yet neither has stopped to ponder the reasons. Those reasons are morality and conscience.

One does not need to be religious to recognize some sort of morality; religion has no corner on the moral market. If you have ever said “that was wrong,” or “this is the right thing to do,” you are speaking from your own moral center, whatever that may be. When you claim that moral center, however, and you fail to live by it, you make yourself an absolute hypocrite – religion holds no monopoly on that, either.

I find it interesting when liberals attack me and my friends (interesting in that “I’d like to psychoanalyze you” kind of way). Liberals always, without fail, attack along the same lines: you’re supporting the people who hate us, you’re a traitor, they’re intolerant, they will never respect you, how can you do this to us, you must hate yourself, you’re a self-loathing closet case, you (insert string of profanities here)!

Gay liberals will point to so-called Christians who uniformly quote a handful of out-of-context scriptures and call homosexuality sick, twisted and sinful – then either call them hypocrites or, without knowing anything about Christian scriptures, try to point out what they see as absurdities in those scriptures. They love to point out that these folks are hypocrites by saying, “that’s not very Christ-like!”

At the same time, they demand the very tolerance that they refuse to give. They say that Christians who harp on homosexuality as the ultimate sin create an atmosphere of hostility toward gay people, then turn around and create an atmosphere of hostility toward any person who doesn’t follow their line of thinking. In so doing, they become the very same monster they have made Christians out to be – tragically, for the same reasons.

You see, gay liberals will explain their behavior away by saying, “I don’t have to tolerate people who are intolerant.” I have to ask, though, who decides who is truly intolerant? Since you’re saying that they are definitely wrong, that means you have some sort of moral center. How did you decide that they were wrong? Your own conscience? If so, what is your conscience measured by? Who or what provided your moral compass – was it faith, reason, or emotional convenience?

If it is faith, then I have to know which god would give us the right to commit the very same sin which we condemn in others. If reason, I must know which school of thought confuses a closed mind with an open one. The only thing that makes sense to me is emotional convenience – I’m right, everyone else is wrong, and my best argument is going to be a slew of personal attacks, but that is acceptable for me because I feel that I have the moral high ground.

How is that any different from people who interpret the Bible to say that gay people should be put to death? On a different level, how is saying that you pity me and my conservative values very far removed from Christians who say that they pity us because we’re sick and need to be delivered from homosexuality?

It all boils down to a single question: how do you know that your morality is more right than another person’s?

If your answer is anything other than, “it’s what I believe, and I don’t think anyone should be forced to see it my way,” you are the very animal you accuse them of being.

Comments (25)

Bourgeois Negroes

Feb 2, 12 3:52 PM

I hope the title of this post is as repulsive to you as it was to me when I heard it. Watch the video that it comes from. (LANGUAGE WARNING – not safe for work or kids!)

memphis-talk-radio-host-humiliates-black-gop-candidate

The host is Thaddeus Matthews, and he is outrageously disrespectful. It’s difficult to say how to answer this guy, but I’m gonna give it a stab.

Matthews is interviewing Charlotte Bergman, a black Republican. The very first thing he does is get confrontational about her “membership” with the Tea Party. He kicks things off by getting snippy over her answer – and she’s right, there is no membership in the Tea Party. There is no solid organization for the Tea Party nor any national leadership; it’s a genuine, grassroots organization that is tired of big government spending. Tea Partiers are tired of both Republicans AND Democrats and their spending.

Very quickly, you see that the video was posted by Matthews – who actually believes that Charlotte Bergman is “bought and paid for” by racist white people. Text shots literally say that he believes the Tea Party to be a racist organization and all of the black people involved with conservative politics (which he constantly refers to as the Tea Party, because he is too small-minded to separate the two) to be sellouts, token blacks, and puppets of Fox News.

One incredible illustration claims that conservative black people have betrayed the black community. The very next shot is a text scroll that actually claims that these people draw a salary for running for political office – and that salary is supposedly paid for by racist whites who hate Obama because he is black.

He never once asked an honest question. Not once. He asked her if she was a token of the white community, then when she refused to answer the question the way he wanted he yelled at her to shut up and “stop being stupid.” He demands to know what she’s done for the black community…and then, for the first time, calls her a “bourgeois negro.”

Who is the racist here?

What I fail to understand is, shortly after that, he asks her – a Republican candidate – if she supports Barack Obama. He continues to demand to know what she’s done for a specific black community in Memphis despite the fact that she’s running for office. She’s not in office yet, she can’t do anything until she’s in office! By halfway through his rant, he’s screaming at her about “throwing money” at the inner city issues.

That’s when he starts on his “people problem” rant. He tells her that she needs to change the minds of the people and goes off about Republicans who want to throw money at the issue (which he takes forever to get to – he’s talking about inner city crime rates). That’s when he says we need a program that deals with “the consciousness of people” who want to “rob and murder in the black community” and he again calls her a bourgeois negro.

Since that seems to be his whole point, I’ll bite. What kind of programs are you talking about, Matthews? Exactly how would you enact a program that deals with the consciousness of people? What would that look like, how would it sound? Are you talking about re-education camps, maybe? There is no law in a free society that is capable of re-programming people’s consciousness. You’re talking about changing the culture, and the law cannot do that.

So let’s talk about the culture you reference. Mr. Matthews, do you know the statistics on crime rates? By the way you talk about it, I’m guessing you have an idea. While blacks don’t even comprise one-quarter of the population of the United States, a black man is statistically speaking seven times more likely to commit a violent crime than a white man – and more than 85% of violent crimes committed by black men are committed AGAINST other black men. I’d ask why you think that is, but you go on to tell me later on when you slam the Constitution, basically saying it doesn’t apply to you because when it was first written, black people were property.

Then, you toss her out, refuse to shake her hand because you don’t want her “whiteness to rub off” on you, and you yell at her as she’s leaving, telling her not to stop to talk to people.

Mr. Matthews, your attitude, belligerence and demeanor tell us everything we need to know about what’s wrong with the black community. It is people like YOU.

You, who will verbally abuse a woman half your size, berate and belittle her, tell her she’s stupid and then throw her out because you don’t agree with her. You, who demand that the government do something to help you rather than pulling yourself up out of your situation. You, who insist that the government is responsible for changing a culture that you have helped create. You, who rather than calling out those who help perpetuate the culture you’re lamenting, will celebrate rap artists and their violent and misogynistic lyrics and blame anyone but yourself for the consequences.

Would you call out the members of the New Black Panther Party, whose leader King Samir Shabazz called on followers once to kill “crackers” and their babies? Of course you wouldn’t. You probably believe Shabazz is right and he’s empowering black people to rise up. You’ll call me a racist, however, because I’m white and I don’t like Barack Obama. I didn’t have much respect for white leftists Al Gore or Bill Clinton, either, but that doesn’t matter much. To you, the only reason I could possibly have to dislike Obama is if I’m a racist, truth be damned.

You, Mr. Matthews, are indicative of the biggest problem in your own community. You expect everyone else to fix you. I’ll tell you what I tell alcoholics and drug addicts that I deal with professionally: you have to want to change yourself before anything will get better. It may suck at first, but it starts with YOU. Once you change yourself, you can talk about changing the world around you. The same thing can be applied to your “culture”.

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What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Feb 1, 12 6:49 PM

“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.” -C.S. Lewis

This picture was spotted on Facebook. It was linked by a liberal friend of mine who does agree with it. She also happens to be the only liberal I know who doesn’t openly hope that I’ll be shot in the face. We agree to disagree on politics, pretty much sticking to films and other such subjects.

Look carefully at this, and ponder the claims.

First, Gingrich. The very first claim made is the only honest one – yes, he has been married three times. I don’t like it. There’s a lot of conservatives who don’t like it. I’m not, however, willing to use it as a reason to push him out of politics because of it. The second claim is that he was indicted for scandal; this is either a bald-faced lie or an ignorant mistake. The whole scandal revolved around the improper usage of tax-exempt donations and using the chairman of GOPAC to help him develop the legislation that the GOP would support during his tenure as the Speaker of the House; the use of a consultant violated House rule 45 (which apparently bars the use of official resources for unofficial purposes, yet I cannot find a single document that lists what the rules were for the 104th Congress), as did apparently allowing a man named Donald Jones to use his Congressional office to work on a reading program for children that was supposed to tie in with the Speaker’s “Earning by Learning” program.

“Indicted” means just cause was found to bring charges before a court because a crime was committed. Gingrich was investigated but never indicted – nor was he ever impeached. In fact, 83 of the original 84 ethics complaints against him were dropped after an extensive four-year investigation because it was determined that none of the violations occurred while Gingrich was the Speaker of the House – which was when the violations were alleged to have taken place. The only complaint that remained was a claim that he had failed to abide by federal tax law in regards to donations. THAT was tossed as well when the IRS and a federal judge determined the law had not been broken (the original complaint stated that GOPAC had improperly funded his campaign and failed to publicize its list of donors). In the end, he was fined $300,000 to repay the cost of the investigation.

The third allegation is where the C.S. Lewis quote comes in. It simply says “racist/homophobic”. The only evidence anyone has ever provided that he’s a racist was his comment, made in 2008, that “Spanish is the language of living in the ghetto.” He was talking about the importance of teaching English in this country. Now, he almost immediately apologized for how it sounded, but not one of the people who claim he is a racist has acknowledged that fact. He clarified that what he was trying to say was that English is the language spoken in the United States and it is important to learn our language if you want to really succeed here. He is correct about that, and there’s nothing racist about it. Every other claim is that he’s used “coded racist speech” (translation: we want to call him a racist to shut him up but he won’t cooperate and use overt hate speech so we’ll read into his words whatever we want).

Homophobic? I don’t think so. He has said that he doesn’t believe genetics have to be followed, he believes homosexuality to be a choice, and he is against gay marriage, but I don’t consider that homophobic. A person who has an irrational fear of homosexuals is a homophobe, and not one person can claim that he has an irrational fear of us (see my previous post for genuine evidence of homophobia). It is ridiculous to claim that the man is a racist or a homophobe because there is no evidence of either – and when you do call him those things, when you come up against the real deal you no longer have a word to describe them.

Now, for the claims about the Big O!

Married once – yes, that’s true. Has he been faithful? We honestly don’t know. At least three separate claims of infidelity from both Barack AND Michelle have been made, but the press is sleeping on the job. They’re about as interested in investigating these claims as I am in having my wisdom teeth removed.

No scandals? I beg to differ. Fast & Furious leaps to mind – under Bush, it was known as Project Gunrunner and when they figured out it was going to be a failure they killed it. Obama resurrected it, gave it three times the original budget and four times the manpower, and it became a train wreck on steroids. Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has already lied in Congressional hearings about his knowledge of the program – and is now dodging subpoenas. At least one ATF official, Patrick Cunningham, has pleaded the Fifth (and has since resigned). There’s Carol Browner and Ken Salazar, who both helped draw up the completely illegal offshore drilling ban, complete with invented claims attributed to a Congressional panel that actually strongly objected to the ban. The administration was later called out by a Louisiana judge for continuing to enforce the illegal ban. There’s the administration’s loan to Solyndra, $535M to be exact. More recently, other “green” companies that received millions of taxpayer dollars – Evergreen Energy, Beacon Power Corp., and electric car manufacturer Ener1 – have gone belly-up, with several others teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

There was the no-bid $433M contract awarded to Siga Technologies for an experimental smallpox drug that some experts say may not even work. There’s the ongoing issues with former NJ governor Jon Corzine, who quietly got his Obama campaign donations back although Obama hasn’t commented on Corzine’s role in the MF Global scandal (and Corzine wasn’t the only MF Global head who had supported Obama). The Obamacare waivers, however, are one of the biggest scandals of all – every single one went to DNC supporters, including labor unions, Nevada casinos and fancy restaurants in Pelosi’s district responsible for thousands in Obama campaign money (literally 20% of those waivers landed in Pelosi’s district).

Oh, but he ended DADT! That’s great, right? Well, I’d buy that if it weren’t for his continued support of DOMA, originally signed into law by Bill Clinton (sorry, lefties – claiming that he doesn’t because he’s telling the DOJ not to defend it in court isn’t enough, he does not support repeal at all). You’ll never see a photo like this containing Mitt Romney. He has no scandals in his personal life and he signed gay marriage rights into law when he was governor of Massachusetts. The gay left has no response to him, so they’re going to attack Newt.

And, really…Jeremiah Wright? Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn? Tony Rezko? ACORN?!? No scandal, my backside.

Comments (7)

Put It In Context, Part 2

Jan 26, 12 5:45 PM

(Before anyone asks, yes, I will address the repartee between Gov. Jan Brewer and President Obama – just not right now. I’m giving Obama the opportunity to respond.)

As I mentioned in the last post, I have been accused of doing nothing but complaining about the mean things that liberals say. Also, as I mentioned, the person who made that accusation has never read anything I’ve written calling out those on the right that I disagree with (that would include George W. Bush and Joe Arpaio). So, without further ado, here is the promised outing.

Meet Jeffrey Don Davis.

In Todd Starnes’ report on the incident at Shawano High School in Wisconsin, there were three or four out of a few hundred who posted genuinely hateful comments. This guy led the pack. He was good enough to make his profile picture available to the public on Facebook. He apparently went to technical school at Texas State Technical College and studied computer networking. He also apparently has no idea that Sarah Palin vetoed a very popular bill as soon as she took office in Alaska – the bill that would have stripped same-sex partners of state employees of any and all benefits. I say that because he has her listed as one of the people who inspire him. He lists several other people who wouldn’t agree with what he does. Here is a sampling of his drivel:

“Joe Distefano But it’s ok for a perverted hate pig like you to express your hatred of decent people who do not want to be exposed to your disgusting behavior. As for expressing our beliefs in GOD, GOD himself judged homosexuals and found them to be severly lacking.”

“Dawn Dickinson I have news for you Dawg, some sex change bulld*ke does not a man make.”

“Joe Distefano I speak my anti-pervert opinions in public and the only demeted ****** who ever dared to criticize me spent the night in the hospital. Opposition to sexual perversion (including homosexuality) in public is nothing more than good taste and common decency.”

“Joe Distefano Yes homosexuality is a perversion just like pedophilia, bestiality, incest, coprophagia, necrophilia, etc. Actually I had a pervert call me a bigot for opposing homosexuality, I spit in his face, he swung at me and I kicked the **** out of him. Once again you POS, anytime you want to see a bigot, just look in the mirror.”

“Joe Distefano Once again idiot, don’t try speaking for your betters, you have more than enough trouble speaking for yourself. Jesus’ father, GOD sentence homoNazis to death.”

“Jeff Taylor I”ll bet you’re mighty macho when another ****** takes your boyfriend to the bathhouse and leaves you in your mother’s basement.”

“Chris Green I take your word that you’re a faggy-behind-a-keyboard.”

“Jeff Taylor If you want to hit on that pervert, buttboy, take it somewhere that decent people don’t have to see it. In typical fag fashion you give up and accuse me of being a fag too. At least your STDs still allow you to think enough that you realize that decent people consider accusations of homosexuality to be insulting.”

“Chad Jonathan Walls As compared to your peach fuzz? Do you keep those cats around to lick cream off your face or do you keep them around to molest. After all, homosexuality is a perversion just like bestiality.”

“Jeff Taylor Go **** yourself instead of the little boys your chase after you demented stool sample.”

“Conrad Shull while an animal like you seeks to put your filthy hands in the pants of little boys. NAMBLA is a homosexual org.”

“The truly intolerant bigots infesting America are homoNazis. I don’t ask for their tolerance. They will tolerate my opinion whether they want to or not and that’s a rule that I personally enforce.”

“Michael Fitzpatrick I don’t ask old faqqots like you to tolerate me. You will tolerate me whether you like it or not.”

THAT, liberals, is hatred. You cannot reason with a person who will threaten you like this. Most of the others engaged me in honest, civil conversation – they asked questions that weren’t staged as thinly-veiled challenges and respected my right to disagree, as I respected theirs. But when you behave like this, whether you’re a religious nutcase on par with Fred Phelps or you’re a liberal claiming that you don’t have to tolerate what you classify as hatred (usually things far milder than this guy and the two who agreed with him), you invalidate your own argument. You make yourself a hypocrite with what Mr. Davis said just as surely as you would by saying, “you anti-gay collaborators need to remember what was done to the Nazi collaborators – they had their heads shaved, their throats slit, and their bodies hung from lampposts.”

In short, here is my belief: Jesus never touched on homosexuality. He did, however, tell us how we should behave. Nowhere in scripture did He give us any command to be belligerent, get in people’s faces, spit on people, judge them, hate them, or spark a fight and later claim you were defending yourself.

I don’t issue threats. I don’t need to. All I will say is that the bible also does tell us to be wise, and while we are to love mercy, we are also to obey justice. If you do wrong and I catch you, I will act appropriately. It is reprehensible that you would try to claim that your religion gives you the right to behave as if there are no rules. You’re an embarrassment to conservatives and the biggest single reason why I find it so difficult to talk to liberals.

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Put It In Context, Part I

Jan 24, 12 4:23 AM

Recently, in the comments of the vlog I posted where I called out gay liberals for their blissful ignorance, one user said that it was somehow one-sided to “only call out liberals who say mean things.” Of course, this was a user with whom I had never had a discussion before and he had no idea that I have, in fact, called out the people on the right who have uneducated ideas about what homosexuality is about; he was commenting on a single video and had no idea what my beliefs were, but he assumed and, naturally, he never admitted he might well be wrong.

This is going to be one of those Come-To-Jesus posts where we sit down and have a good talk about the religious view of homosexuality and the place of both in society.

It starts with a story out of Wisconsin. The Hawks Post, the student newspaper at Shawano High School, published an op-ed mashup between two students of opposing viewpoints. That is perfectly normal for a high school newspaper. What isn’t normal, however, is the subject matter: gay marriage. Even more abnormal was the fact that the student who wrote the dissenting opinion did so from a completely religious perspective, something that doesn’t really jibe with the continued assault on the rights of religious students to express their beliefs.

According to the Green Bay Press Gazette, that student wrote, “If one is a practicing Christian, Jesus states in the Bible that homosexuality is (a) detestable act and sin which makes adopting wrong for homosexuals because you would be raising the child in a sin-filled environment. A child adopted into homosexuality will get confused because everyone else will have two different-gendered parents that can give them the correct amount of motherly nurturing and fatherly structure. In a Christian society, allowing homosexual couples to adopt is an abomination.”

Pretty harsh. Scripturally inaccurate, for sure, but I’ll address that later. First I want to point out a few other things. The article was seen by a 13-year-old student whose parents are a gay couple, one of several in that school district who lead very balanced, healthy homes. When he asked his fathers about it they were both stunned and upset; they talked to the superintendent of the district, who also expressed shock at the article. Almost immediately, the district issued an apology and called the article a form of bullying. One of the fathers was quoted in the article I linked above saying that the printing of that article in a school paper “sets us back 20 or 30 years” and claimed that it could lead to bullying of gay students at the school.

I have a few things to add to this debate before I get into anything else.

1. This debate has no place in a public high school newspaper. Period. It never should have been done. The reason I say this is that it was an op-ed mashup; when you give one student the green light to write in support of any gay rights, you open the door for other students with deeply-held religious beliefs about this subject to insist that their opinion be printed as well. They are going to find ways to express their beliefs, but when you give those beliefs space in a school-sponsored publication you might as well be giving those views some form of validity. It should have been left alone.

2. Once the damage was done, the worst thing the district could possibly have done was attack the dissenting student. Believe me, that is exactly what they did when they apologized and called him a bully. That student doesn’t understand why his views are so reviled, and he is going home to a family and a church body that is affirming what he wrote as a courageous stand. Everything you say against him is, to them, persecution; you are validating everything they’re teaching him.

3. Far be it from me to criticize a parent, since I am not one myself…I am, however, an aunt, and I also remember quite well what it was like when my mother would pound on my principal’s desk about the things they were teaching that she didn’t like. It was embarrassing because it made me a target of the real bullies in school who didn’t claim any religion at all. If you push too hard, you’re setting your own kids apart more than anyone else is. Plus, if you get upset about it, they will, too – turn it into a learning experience, and do it peacefully. You might make more friends than you thought you could.

Todd Starnes of Fox News reported on it as well, and if you read the comments you’ll see some pretty intense back-and-forth from some genuinely intellectual people and other folks who…well, aren’t quite that well educated. If they were going to let one student write about the subject, then it was only fair that they let a dissenting opinion in, and since they made that decision they should be standing by it. Instead, the district has behaved in the worst way possible.

I’m going to say what they are not going to let anyone else say…while this student has his right to his opinion, he is wrong.

Jesus never, not once, addressed homosexuality. Never in any of His sermons, prayers or responses to the religious leaders did He ever say one word about homosexuality. The only place where it is called an abomination is in Leviticus 20 (which this student did cite) – the very same ceremonial law that also called for the death penalty for adulterers, children who disrespect their parents, idolaters, soothsayers (what we know today as astrologers), and married couples who have sex during the wife’s menstrual cycle (no, I’m not joking). That ceremonial law takes up nearly the whole of Leviticus, and the ceremonial law was exactly what Jesus meant when He said He had come to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:17). The ceremonial law and the moral law were very distinct and separate. Jesus’ sacrifice – His torture, death on the cross, and resurrection – was the atonement for sin that the ceremonial law called for according to scripture. The biggest reason for the ceremonial law was to set Israel apart completely from other nations, and because Christ is the way to salvation now, the ceremonial law is moot for us.

Nowhere is that point so clearly made than in Galatians 2:15-16: “We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.” In the very next chapter Paul reminds the Galatians that if you only cite part of the law but do not keep it all, you call a curse on yourself. I would caution religious conservatives who like to point out those scriptures – you’re taking scripture out of context.

My next post will be a little different. I will be dropping names, pictures and direct quotes from a couple of genuine hatemongers.

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Newt Takes South Carolina!

Jan 22, 12 2:09 AM

In a stunning blow to the Romney campaign, Newt Gingrich has taken South Carolina by a whopping 41% – the first time any candidate has taken SC without first winning either Iowa or New Hampshire. It’s a historic upset, and I have a few thoughts about each of the remaining four candidates.

1. Ron Paul – he was done before it started. There is no way that any man who allowed anyone to ghost write racist and homophobic material for his newsletter was going to stand a chance, and that wasn’t all he did; he defended the newsletters at first, never denying anything until 2007, and even then he refused to address his previous defense of them. To this day he has not answered that controversy appropriately. Add on top of that the fact that he has graciously accepted donations and endorsements from the likes of David Duke and his white supremacist organization, Stormfront, and you have a bona-fide loser. I don’t care which way you look at it; no self-respecting black conservative (and there are many) would ever vote for the man. Nor would any Jew or homosexual. Yes, these people all have their rights to their beliefs, but screaming “FIRST AMENDMENT!” isn’t going to win the nomination – in fact, in this case, it’s a damn sure loss. Whether you like it or not people who cannot stand up to that sort of thing will not be invited to lead this country.

2. Rick Santorum – he might have stood a chance if he could have left his religion out of politics. He’s never been able to do that and he has never answered for the remarks he made in 2003 – namely aligning homosexuality with child molestation committed by priests, as well as saying that we as Americans had no right to privacy and sodomy laws should have been re-enacted. He followed all of that up with standing up for SOPA without much explanation (and if I am not mistaken, I believe I have recently heard him reaffirm his belief that we do not have a Constitutional right to privacy, and in 2005 he said on NPR, “I think conservatives understand that most individuals can’t go it alone…”). All of this is based on his very well-known religious beliefs, and I promise you his beliefs haven’t changed. If they had, he would be denouncing his past statements. Since he has not done that, he has managed to alienate a lot of voters. His Iowa win was a fluke – however I believe that now he has too much pride to drop out, even after his astounding loss in South Carolina.

3. Mitt Romney – I will say right now just to clear the air: the fact that he is a Mormon is not an issue, at least not to conservatives. He has never made his faith a cornerstone of his image and never tried to use it to explain his major political ideas, so for now, set that aside. The biggest problem with Romney is that he has zero appeal to the Tea Party and their supporters. Mark will disagree with me on this, but Mitt can’t communicate with them. The biggest reason is Massachusetts health care reform. The short version goes like this: the State of Massachusetts had a very high number of people getting free healthcare through medicare and medicaid; the federal government threatened to yank funding if Romney didn’t do something to lower the number of public healthcare recipients. In the end, he signed a bill into law that carried an individual mandate to buy insurance or face stiff tax penalties, including the loss of exemption for having an income below a certain level – however those with income low enough would still see their healthcare subsidized and employers were required to provide a certain amount of coverage. Rather than asking why there were so many people getting free government-funded healthcare, he further expanded government power on it and then explained it away by claiming that it was conservative in a way because it didn’t result in a government takeover of healthcare. Once he got into the issue, there was no reigning it in, either…he tried to veto eight different highly controversial provisions of the bill, including a nearly $300 fee for every small business employee that the business didn’t provide insurance for, but every single veto was sharply overridden by the Democrats he’d been so cuddly with, who proceeded to pass a bill that so overreached into the freedoms of residents of the State that the bill was mirrored on the federal level just as soon as Obama took office. He cannot escape Romneycare.

4. Newt Gingrich – Newt had been lagging behind until the recent debate. FAR behind, in fact. Most pundits had already decided that the race was already between Romney and Santorum and had already proceeded accordingly. With this week’s debate, however, Newt proved himself more than capable of handling himself – in the first 90 seconds of the debate, he roused not one but TWO standing ovations when he raked moderator John King over the coals for bringing up the recent ABC interview with his ex-wife in which she claimed that he had asked her for an “open marriage”. Now, this isn’t the first time she’s made incredible claims about him, so coming from her, this is not news; what he could have said was, “John, I would really like to know where all of this concern about allegations of infidelity were in the 90′s, when you and your fellow press activists gave Bill Clinton a free pass on all kinds of misconduct, including practically ignoring allegations that he had raped a woman!” However, he stuck to his own issues and displayed more class than I apparently have by only answering for himself. He kicked it off by lambasting the press for their outrageous bias and telling behavior, and that set the tone for the rest of his campaign. If he keeps it up he could very well be the nominee – and possibly the next president.

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Dr. King Would Have Said…

Jan 17, 12 4:34 AM

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

Growing up, I remember a lot of emphasis being put on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in school. They never taught us what Memorial Day or Veterans Day were about; I had to learn that at home. By the 80′s, after the passage of the Vietnam era, public schools had already turned very liberal and didn’t teach respect for our troops nearly as much as they taught worship of activists.

As an adult, though, I do see the importance of remembering Dr. King. I see it in a different light now because I know more about what he believed and taught. It wasn’t just about “I Have a Dream” or even about “How Long? Not Long.” It was about reaching equal status as human beings regardless of color or creed – and reaching it in a spirit of respect. That was the underlying message in every speech he delivered, every march he led, every sermon he preached and every soul he touched. It is overwhelmingly sad that so many have since twisted his teachings into something unrecognizable.

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”

Early in his days as an activist, Dr. King’s home was bombed over the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I never learned that in school – I had to learn it on my own. His response wasn’t anger. It wasn’t a demand for fellow black people to target white people with similar attacks. He hardly reacted at all. His greatest response – it was far classier than mine would have been – was to simply keep the movement going. That was just the beginning.

He insisted that they march and protest, but that every movement be nonviolent. He encouraged black people to refuse to move to the back of the bus or take their restaurant order outside, yet he taught those who refused to obey Jim Crow laws not to fight back when kicked off of their lunch stool or arrested for refusing to give up their seat to a white man on a bus. Even when police responded to their peaceful protests with water cannons, rubber bullets and dogs, Dr. King still refused to fight in the traditional sense. He went to jail. And when divisions arose over his strict policy of nonviolence, he requested that movements stop until everyone had cooled down.

“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

Dr. King’s message spoke volumes. His theme of earning respect by first showing it even to those who hated them advanced the rights of black Americans in ways that nobody up to that point had dreamed was possible. His strategy worked: when the first attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery ended in extensive police brutality against the protesters, news footage drew outrage across the country. Dr. King, however, called the very white men who threatened him (and, on occasion, did harm him) his brothers.

That was the remarkable thing about him: he was so hopeful for equality that he didn’t even entertain the notion of black America getting even or taking the upper hand. All he wanted, all he was willing to accept, was equality. He was not willing to be so much as rude or condescending, much less deliberately shocking. His ultimate goal was for people to get to a point where we saw right through skin color to the human being that inhabited that skin.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

The night before he was assassinated, Dr. King gave a sermon at the Church of God in Christ in Memphis. During his sermon he said this: “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.” I choked up when I read that he had requested that, at his funeral, no mention be made of his awards or accolades.

Here we had a man so dedicated to peace and equality that he wasn’t even willing to defend himself when he was physically attacked. He wasn’t perfect, but he was dedicated and he set an amazing example – don’t accuse, don’t insult, but instead show love. Even such proteges as Jesse Jackson have lost the lessons that Dr. King left us.

Even worse, the same gay community who believes that Dr. King would have stood up for gay rights in America had he been alive today completely ignores his message.

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

If Dr. King were here today, he would weep for all of the anger there is now in liberal circles. Black, White, Hispanic, GLBT – all of these groups claim King’s legacy as part of their cause yet they either forget or deliberately ignore what he really taught. He taught that sacrifice and dignity in suffering were the moral high ground and would speak louder than anger and hatred, but that very important piece of his message is never observed anymore. Lately there’s been a lot of liberal hatred leveled at myself and other gay conservatives simply because we’re conservatives. We’re trying to have an intelligent conversation, yet we’re being shouted down by the same people who say Dr. King would have marched with them.

I’m not Dr. King. I’m not willing to allow anyone to do me harm simply because they don’t like my politics. In this day and age, I believe it sends the wrong message. I would rather pursue peace, however, and would do what I could to avoid violence. Tolerance is not possible as long as you excuse your own hatred by saying, “well, you’re a bigot, so I don’t have to tolerate you!” You’ll never be tolerated, much less accepted, as long as that is your game. I promise that Dr. King never would have approved.

Dr. King would have wept as well at the pervading attitude among many black Americans today that mere disagreement equals racism, not to mention the fact that freedom coupled with welfare has resulted in multiple generations of entire families doing nothing to build their communities up.

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”

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Self-Loathing Closet Case!

Jan 14, 12 7:12 PM

Ethan Sabo, a gay conservative who hails from my home state, posted a video after being blasted yet again by gay liberals. He let ‘em have it. Click here and watch.

Once you’ve watched what he had to say, here’s my response – standing in solidarity.

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More Leftist Hate Speech

Jan 14, 12 2:43 AM

“For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know.” -Theodore Roosevelt

Dana Loesch, editor for bigjournalism.com and host of The Dana Show, took to her show to give her two cents about the story about US Marines caught on camera urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Basically what she said was what I did when I first heard about it: yes, it was wrong, but it’s absolutely silly to turn it into a travesty when we’re dealing with an enemy that outlawed music, enforced severe penalties under extreme religious law, and after also outlawing competitive sports converted a soccer field into an execution stage where women and children were routinely lashed or executed for crimes as outrageous as being caught out in public without a male relative to escort them – or not wearing a burqa that completely concealed every inch of skin.

The vitriol that poured out of the left at Dana was incredible. We’ve all seen some serious hate speech from liberals, but this was pretty bad. Here are some of the messages sent to her on Twitter (LANGUAGE WARNING):

@anti_feminist: Ok,no more mainstream conservative pro war loving media for me tonight.fuck #cnn and piss on @DLoesch with acid. #fuckthecowardlytroops also

@anti_feminist: “@DLoesch: Email: “You … will be raped and mutilated repeatedly, and you will be skinned alive.” #newtone” |IF ONLY! That id pay to see!

@anti_feminist: “@RT_America: CNN contributor @DLoesch wants to pee on dead Afghans too [VIDEO] http://on.rt.com/c749mr” |ONE NASTY STINKIN CUNT! DIE BITCH!

(there were so many similar Tweets from the same guy – his name is supposedly Joseph Hunter – that I can’t list them all here.)

@Sorrowmachine: @DLoesch … How did your soul become so rotten? No one could ever love you… evil makes you ugly.

@MrMeano: @DLoesch I want to take a shit on you, since you’re obviously into it.

@SavageDem: I’d happily drop trou and urinate on @DLoesch.

@cassie_51: @DLoesch Fu*cking Pig!!!!How dare you traitor!!! (This was the only one I could see who apologized, BTW.)

Then came Keith Olbermann. Oh, Keith…we all know how he is.

@KeithOlbermann: In short, we have to be better than Taliban. If not, we become…well, @DLoesch

Dana replied:

@DLoesch: So @KeithOlbermann thinks I’m the Taliban? http://bit.ly/zEhJob So ridiculous.

Keith retorted:

@KeithOlbermann: Actually, no. They are unthinking religious fanatics. You’re worse.

THEN, some other guy interjected:

@HateRickScott: @DLoesch Perhaps you need to be throat fucked into submission by the Taliban and then have them piss all over you? I’m not sure, you cunt.

Another user suggested that the FCC fine her for her comments (not within the FCC’s purview, not by a longshot). Then, there was this gem, which ran a close second to the one I just gave you:

@StealthJihad: @DLoesch You better not ever let me see you out. I’ll rub cat sh*t in your face.

My, my…all this tolerance is so heartwarming.

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