Tag: Gay rights

A Homophobe in Virginia Speaks

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This appeared in the Richmond Times Dispatch. My dissection below.

God Does Not Delight In Homosexuality

Editor, Times-Dispatch:
I take issue with the celebratory tone of the Metropolitan Community Church’s 30-year anniversary [Op/Ed column, “Congregation Celebrates 30 Years — For the Love of God”]. Establishing a church for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders is to confer a blessing on a church that would celebrate thieves, slanderers, swindlers, and adulterers, for I Corinthians 6:9-10 lists homosexual offenders along with these other undesirables. Indeed, this passage says that those who practice such activities will not inherit the kingdom of God unless there is repentance.

By believing this Scripture, one is not denying the personhood or dignity of those who participate in any of these activities, as Pastor Robin Gorsline accuses in his guest column. Haven’t we all slandered someone, and haven’t we all taken something that did not belong to us? The point is that these actions are not to be lauded; they are to be recognized as wrong and corrections made. The Bible calls this repentance. To celebrate slanderers or swindlers would produce a society of mistrust. To celebrate adultery and homosexuality would undermine the cornerstone of a stable society — the family.

Gorsline writes that “God is delighted that I am gay.” God is no more delighted that one is gay than He is delighted that one cheats on his spouse, or that one makes malicious statements to injure another’s reputation. God has set a standard for how he wants His creation to behave. He knows that we will fail, and that is the reason He sent His son Jesus to intercede for those who acknowledge their sin. Whether one is a slanderer or a homosexual, it is a contrite heart, not a proud heart, that delights God.

Elaine Hanger. Chesterfield.

Hanger assigns attributes to gay people that just aren’t that way in the verses she quotes.

For your edification here they are:

6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

So in essence Hanger is saying that if we are ‘abusers of ourselves’ than we are ALSO fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effiminate, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers and extortionists.

Nice little piece of word trickery there. I’d also like to point Hanger to that commandment about not bearing false witness against your neighbor. She misses it by a mile by making her pronouncements based on a small selection of text from a text so riddled with contradiction that it makes you head spin if you read the whole book.

We occasionally get wing-nut letters like this in our local rag but they tend to stick with the passages from Leviticus. It’s interesting to see the branching out into first Corinthians now. And if I may do a little prophesying myself, let me make a guess at the life of Elaine Hanger.

I see that she lives alone with her 6 cats, gossips mercilessly about her neighbors, hasn’t had the comfort of a man for almost her whole life, except that quick, fumbling fuck in her senior year of High School.

She thinks her shit doesn’t stink. Goes to church every Sunday but misses the message completely.

And here’s the other thing, how much would you like to bet that she didn’t locate those two passages by herself. No she didn’t, her pastor on the other hand in order to whip up the congregation has to instill the hate against the ‘other’ I’ve spoken about earlier and since he’s a man that knows the book and how to use it to keep himself in comfort and his congregation in fear.

I went through the same shit with my father. He once said to me that the Bible said that white people and black people shouldn’t be together. I of course asked what book he read that in and then the truth came out, his pastor said it. I did some research on the pastor, turns out he’s affiliated with a white supremacist group. So that’s where it came from.

That’s the other thing. People who go to church all the time, do their little apostolic works, etc. are the ones who depend on their religious leader to interpret what they’re reading, if they’re reading at all. Mostly they just listen to the sermons. So it’s very easy for a pastor with an agenda to sneak ideas into the heads of his congregation.

There was a line from The Police song “De Do Do Do De Da Da Da” that went “Poets, priests and politicians have words to thank for their positions.”

No doubt, language is slippery and can be used for nefarious deeds.

A memo in support of Marriage Equality

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This memo was written by my cousin. He knows his way around the RI and U.S. Constitutions due to his fighting for his rights as an individual with certain disabilities. He sees parallels between his fight and the fight we’re going through right now in Rhode Island regarding marriage equality.

I think you all know my position on this issue already and I don’t have much else to say about this. But Tom definitely lays it out, in essence telling our legislators either they do something, or the courts will have to decide. I think his memo is going to shake things up in the Marriage Equality RI circles as they feel the RI Supreme Court is somewhat hostile to our cause and I understand that after the gay divorce debacle that the court dropped the ball on. But I think it comes down to wording it in such a way that the justices on the court cannot say no.

LEGISLATIVE MEMORANDUM SUPPORTING AMENDMENTS CREATING EQUAL MARRIAGE RIGHTS

In this memorandum of law, I shall briefly outline the legal reasons that this honorable General Assembly must pass the proposed legislation, bills S.2204 and H.7839, which will amend the current statutes to equalize the marriage rights of same-sex couples in Rhode Island (provided that both individuals are legally-competent, consenting adults and are not otherwise-prohibited because of bigamy or incest). R.I. General Laws, section 15-1-1 et seq. I also respectfully urge this Legislature to create such other remedies to enforce this provision (i.e., to prevent discrimination against lawfully-married, same-sex couples).
1. The current marriage statutes are facially arbitrary and invidiously discriminatory in their enforcement, and thereby violate the due-process and equal-protection provisions of the Rhode Island and United States Constitutions.

The Rhode Island marriage statutes discriminate based solely on the gender of one or both of the individuals, and on no other factor (emphasis added). These statutes recognize only marriages between one man and one woman, thereby depriving the
involved individuals and couples of their rights guaranteed by the Equal Protection

Clauses of the Constitution of the United States and of the Rhode Island Constitution.

U.S. Const., amend. XIV, sec. 1; R.I. Const., art. I, sec. 2 (1986).

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, section

2 of the Rhode Island Constitution both clearly prohibit denials of substantive due-

process and equal-protection of the laws. Rhode Island’s equal-protection guarantee

(amended in 1986) is more specific, however, regarding the prohibition of gender-based

discrimination by the State. See Teachers’ Union, Local 958 v. Providence City Council,

888 A.2d 948 (R.I. 2005); Kleczek v. R.I. Interscholastic League, 612 A.2d 734 (R.I.

1992) and Jones v. State, 724 F.Supp. 25 (D.RI 1989). See also, Romer v. Evans, 517

U.S. 620 (1996) and Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1.

Moreover, the statutes are facially arbitrary as written and are enforced in an

invidious, discriminatory manner that is clearly repugnant to the substantive

due-process guarantees contained in both the federal and state constitutions. They

interfere with fundamental, constitutional and human rights of privacy, dignity and

freedom of association. See State v. Russell, 890 A.2d 453; Lawrence v.

Texas, 539 U.S. 558; Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 379 and Meyer v. Nebraska, 262

U.S. 390.

In fact, the Rhode Island Supreme Court has long held that the right to marry (or to enter the marriage contract) is itself a fundamental right protected by the federal and state constitutions (emphasis added). See Riley v. Department of Environmental Management, 2006-175-Appeal (R.I. 2/14/2008)(citing In re Advisory Opinion to the House of Representatives, 85-H-7748, 519 A.2d 578 (R.I. 1987)(quoting Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 562 (1972)).

2. The current statutes are inconsistent with the stated public-policy goals and

purposes of this General Assembly and previous court interpretations of the R.I.

Civil Rights Act of 1990.

The state and federal courts of Rhode Island have consistently construed the Rhode

Island Civil Rights Act of 1990 (“RICRA”), section 42-112-1 of R.I. General Laws, as a

broad, legislative grant of contractual rights for all persons within the State, regardless

of [inter alia] gender, and providing more expansive protection than the [then-existing]

federal civil-rights laws (emphasis added). See Ward v. City of Pawtucket Police

Department, 639 A.2d 1379 (R.I. 1994)(cited by Rathbun v. Autozone, 361 F.3d 62 (1st

Cir. 2004) and Wyss v. General Dynamics, 24 F.Supp.2d 202 (D.RI 1998).

In fact, our Supreme Court has held that the RICRA was enacted by this Legislature to override any statute inconsistent with its overall public-policy goal of eliminating all forms of discrimination (emphasis added). See Folan v. Department of Children, Youth and Families, 723 A.2d 287 (R.I. 1999).

3. If this honorable General Assembly refuses to act on this matter, the Rhode

Island Supreme Court may have no choice but to compel such action, as a matter of

constitutional law.

Article 1, section 5 of the Rhode Island Constitution states that no class of

individuals can be completely denied a remedy for constitutional or legal injuries.

Kennedy v. Cumberland Engineering Co.,, 471 A.2d 195 (R.I. 1984). Our Supreme

Court would likely order this Legislature to fashion an appropriate remedy.

To summarize, this Legislature must be proactive in equalizing the marriage rights

and benefits for same-sex couples in Rhode Island.

Sincerely,

Thomas P. Seymour

Copyright © 2008, Thomas P. Seymour. Interested persons or organizations may use the material contained in this memo, as long as they give me proper credit. The opinions contained herein are made by me as an individual citizen and disability-rights advocate. The author hereby states, under penalty of perjury, that he is not an attorney and therefore, nothing in this memo should even be remotely construed as his giving of legal advice or preparation of legal documents.

South Florida Gay Rights

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This time it happened in Broward County in Florida. The last asshat we heard from was in Dade county Florida. And karma has had its way with Anita Bryant. Suck an orange bitch, or maybe a cream pie in the face.

Anyhow this time around it appears a local gay couple in Miami have had enough. It started with hearing a biblical quote being read over the public address system at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on their return home one late night. The skycap has been terminated but this galvanized the couple into action.

What I find unbelievable is the number of people who’ll tell them to their face that they’re second class citizens. This quote really saddens me.

”The next day I was at the gym,” Hudson said. ‘A large-size note that had `fag’ scrawled across it was stuck in my windshield. At that point I started to take side roads going home. It was a weird way to live. A few days later, a woman came up to me and spit in my face in the grocery store, with her 6-year-old son in hand. I said to her, ‘What a great lesson to teach your son.’ ”

Mr. Hudson definitely took the high road on the latter episode. I’m only half Italian but I have the temper. Let a similar episode happen to me and all bets are off. Woman or not, I’d have punched her lights out. An assault for an assault. Well, not technically. There is a difference between assault and battery. Assault is the creation of a fear of immediate harm, while battery would be the actual act of spitting in someones face, or punching said bitches lights out.

I know what motivates the haters. It’s religion. I know this because my dad is a born again Christian and some of the things he spews out irk the crap out of me. Of course he knows all about me and my life and not being able to resist a challenge like that, I’ll usually explain to him that his biblical understand is sub-par. Tell him it doesn’t count when someone reads it to you, you have to read it yourself.

He’d be one of those people spitting in the guys faces. He signed the petition to ban gay marriage in Florida, so should I expect anything different?

This is why religion is evil. Or I should say, this is why the monotheistic abrahamic religions are evil. When is the last time you heard of a Buddhist attacking people?

Anyhow, here is an uplifting video. Anita Bryant getting a fruit pie in the face. Pray lady pray.