Senator Karl Kruger Gay?? No Way!!

At least not with a house as tasteless as this. The previous owner was a mobster who wound up taking a contract out on the architect - I wonder why!!

Joe My God:
While recently outed anti-gay New York state Sen. Carl Kruger and his gynecologist boyfriend await trial on federal bribery and corruption charges, the New York Times examines what Kruger did with all that looted dough.

News: Matt Barber Reveals His Favorite Book (besides the Bible)

The Reverend Dan Vojir's Section 8 Story: Why San Francisco Is Heaven And Sweetwater, TN is Hell

OK, read the post below to find out about my own story. It may not be the most moving, but it sure is the most pertinent in regards to the concept of "compassionate housing" and why we should remonstrate against organizations like Sweetwater Housing Authority and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Sweetwater, TN Goes To Rome: Now CATHOLIC BISHOPS Tell HUD To Take A Hike!

My Own Story Re: HUD, Housing and Compassion

Who'd have thought that little Sweetwater, TN could garner such an august following! The Sweetwater Housing Authority may have started a revolution amongst faith-based agencies in regards to housing discrimination and sexual orientation. Below is part of the letter to HUD by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:

" ... the proposed addition of these new classifications (“sexual orientation” and “gender identity”) in HUD regulations may, perhaps unintentionally, cause a type of discrimination not contemplated in the proposed rule.  Specifically, the regulations may force faith-based and other organizations, as a condition of participating in HUD programs and in contravention of their religious beliefs, to facilitate shared housing arrangements between persons who are not joined in the legal union of one man and one woman."

In other words, "we're compassionate, but not that compassionate." 


I'll admit that I have a somewhat personal stake in all of this, so please bear with me and keep in mind that there is a point to this anecdote: 


In 1999, while not exactly "riding high" on life, my situation was good: I had married a wonderful man named Michael (the ceremony and reception composed one of the biggest gay weddings you've ever seen), we lived in a loft in San Francisco that I was able to remake into a "victorian," I hosted a syndicated radio program interviewing authors and celebrities (e.g. Steve Allen and William F. Buckley) while promoting books and publishing them as well. In the meantime, Michael produced and directed plays (twelve years later - next week, in fact - he will be receiving the Bay Area Critics Circle Gene Price Award for his contribution to theater). We had a black "diva kitty" named Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside who preened for guests in his white rhinestone collar. Yes, life was more than good. 


By 2002, however, the DotCom Bust had taken a toll on us: the loft went into foreclosure and we were thankful for the Housing Authority's Section 8. True, we were placed in the most dangerous section of San Francisco (pastime: reporting gunshots at night), but we knew we were lucky that the City of San Francisco and the State of California were more compassionate than other places in instituting their non-discrimination policies regarding sexual orientation. The 5 years we were in the Bay View district saw a deterioration in Michael's health (and mine, for a while) and our typically kind San Francisco neighbors helped us through my pneumocistus  and his three forms of cancer. We tried to give back to our community by helping the local kids  (I was honored with a Jefferson Award) and engineering outings to places like Great America. 


Fast forward to the present: although not partners any longer, Michael and I live together in a Section 8 that is quiet and beautiful ( necessary elements since he has been declared terminal with liver cancer) and I have been his IHSS caregiver for more than five years. He is now in his final stage of his cancer and doctors are stressing "comfort care." 


Looking back to our situation in 2002, neither of us would have survived this long if we'd been in a place like Sweetwater, TN.* You know it. Nine years of care and support, love and compassion would never have existed. Places like Sweetwater demonstrate to us all that compassion has its limits when it comes up against certain tenets of "faith." 


Now even the Catholic Church is setting limits on compassion. The letter to HUD proves it. When George Bush's Faith-Based Initiative passed, this is the kind of thing many of us knew would come to pass: "we're doling out dollars and charity on OUR terms, not yours!" 


Sweetwater and Rome. God helpe us if this epidemic of righteousness becomes a pandemic of inhumanity. 

* The Sweetwater Housing Authority Executive Director, Vicki Barnes, might take the advice of Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abbey) who, when asked by a homophobe what he could do to help improve the quality of his neighborhood after two gay men moved into it, she replied:

 "You could move."

Sweetwater, Tenn.'s Old "Tea Room" - Ahead Of It's Time!!

One "sweet" little fun photo and tidbit:


During our research on homophobic Sweetwater, TN, we came up with this old photo. If Sweetwater knew what today's connotation of "tea room" is, it sure wouldn't post it! 


Sorry guys, this place closed down in 1930's (after the Crash). Bet it had some really great times!!

Update on The Sacred And Profane: Sweetwater, Tennessee's War On The American Family

Our last post might have left readers wondering where the precise definition of the American Family by AFA and Family Research Council can be found. Well, in answer to the AFA's prayers, we've been able to actually locate it: Sweetwater, Tennessee has all the mythical nuclear family needs, right down to its traditional bigotry. 


ours after we posted an OpEdNews article, The American Family: Sacred or Profane?, this bit of insane bigotry was posted by Joe.My.God:

In January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) invited public comment on proposed new rules banning discrimination against LGBT people in all its programs. That prompted Vicki Barnes, the executive director of Tennessee's Sweetwater Housing Authority to fire off a letter to HUD in which she compares gay people to murderers, cult members, prostitutes and drug dealers.

Here is probably the most ironic and damaging section of the letter:

2. This is not a matter of discrimination. In choosing to name a group of people such as the Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), you are choosing to group together a group of people who are not of the same race, but have made a personal and moral life style choice. Other groups who make a personal life style choice are drug user and sellers, gang members, prostitutes, cults and murderers. You are saying any group of persons can call themselves a family. This will cause chaos in the communities and take away the security and stability of the families and would promote the following:

Ms. Barnes goes on to write that recognition of LGBT families would "promote" VIOLENCE, DRUGS, DRUG DEALING, NOT WORKING, and PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSED CHILDREN.

We could all dismiss Ms. Barnes' mindless screed to her living under a rock named Sweetwater, but this would mean prejudice on our part against the poor and uneducated (most of Sweetwater's 6,000 populace is below poverty level). But Sweetwater hardly considers itself a rock. 

Irony Abounds

Sweetwater bills itself as "The Sweetest Town In Tennessee" and the First Baptist Church of Sweetwater focuses on inclusiveness and love:

You can find that sense of belonging at First Baptist Church. If you visit us, you'll recognize that we have a strong love for each other. We believe that there is compassion, hope, and community for everyone through faith in Jesus Christ.   

Thoughts of isolation aside, here's a look at Sweetwater's website. The historic, pristine, folksy, postcard-perfect little town is extremely WASP and mentions nothing about past slavery and Jim Crow atrocities. It's congressional representative, John J. Duncan, Jr. comes from a long line of Southern Baptist legislative adherents and is a darling of the Family Research Council and the NRA.* It's self-promotion as a squeaky-clean town runs counterintuitive to its need for any Section 8 housing or HUD support: pity the poor people who have to find subsidized housing, since they must be looked upon as the lowest of indigent slackers. In addition, Sweetwater's continuous and constant appeal is for people to move there!


The outlook of towns like Sweetwater is imperative to today's Right Wing in forging behind with it's mythical vision of the American Family: steeped in hallowed "tradition", it helps uber-conservatives with its veneer of decency and righteousness. What Ms. Barnes letter underscores is that it is only a veneer. And a pretty tacky one at that. Sweetwater is a town built of ubiquitous buzzwords. And while it is not completely isolated (surrounded as it is by neighboring Knoxville's Wal-Marts), it would not survive in the real world of diversity and global awareness. It is fit to live alongside Lexington, KY's Creation Museum or Heritage U.S.A., but not fit to deal with the 21st century. 


If this sounds like un-American, small town mom-and-apple-pie bashing ... well, it isn't. Instead, it may be one way of relating the insidiousness of the Right in using stock images and pawning them off as the REAL America. Even Sweetwater realizes that it's image is one of the past. But it promotes its past as one you can live in today, and that just isn't right. History is full of beautiful, romantic images, but it is also rife with covert portraits of racism, discrimination and religious intolerance.

As I've noted before, today's real American Family is under attack, and Sweetwater, TN is leading the battle.

* wikipedia: On John J. Duncan, Jr.:
The Family Research Council rated him as a 92% or above since 2002^[2] and the NRA has rated him in equally positive terms.^[2] He is a frequent contributor to Chronicles, a magazine associated with the paleoconservative movement. 

The American Family: Sacred or Profane?

I've often asked myself what kind of organizations with the words "American" and "Family"* support someone like the Christian Right's Bryan Fischer: Fischer fulminates against gays Muslims, feminists, Native Americans and, of course, immigrants. So that begs the question: what is the American Family?

The portrait of today's American Family is not exactly Norman Rockwellian (at least not one of his earlier works). The American Family** still sits down to dinner together (over 85% do), reveres "family time" and even communicates with each other more than ever before. The problem the AFA has encountered: the American Family is more diverse than anything the AFA could have imagined. And even though groups like the AFA have taken up hate-broadcaster Michael Savage's mantra, "Diversity Equals Perversity," it looks like diversity is here to stay. 


Today's American Family may consist of various combinations: mother-father-biological children; single-mother-children; single-father-children; divorced-parents-children; single-gay-father-biological-children; gay-couple-biological-children; gay-couple-adopted-children; lesbian-couple-in-utero-children; mother-father-dependent-grandparent-children; single-man/woman/caregiver-parent. 


Add to any of the above, families with close extensions of aunts, uncles, cousins and life-long friends. Now mix it all up with different races, ethnicities, philosophies, sects and religions: now THAT is the American Family.  It's turned from the mythical nuclear rock to a snowflake: each having the same bonding of love, yet each being distinctive in its form and diversity. 


Unfortunately for America, however, the AFA and its compatriots are unable to see the beauty of these snowflakes (the new family units) and are hammering away at pockets of Right Wing America with such vitriolic determination that some people may come to believe in the superiority of being part of a rock, albeit the kind that never really existed in the first place.


If you go to the AFA's website, your first question usually is: so why isn't it called the Christian Family Association? Simply because a dynamic exists between the Right Wing concept of Christianity and the Right Wing concept of Family: they are too interdependent - one cannot live without the other. Yes, there are Right Wing Jewish families, but if we're playing a numbers game here, their number is very small; with the exception of CUFI (Citizens United For Israel - a Zionist organization founded by Pastor John Hagee), the Christian Right rarely concern themselves with Jewish (family) matters.


On the AFA website:

OUR MISSION

The American Family Association exists to motivate and equip individuals to restore American culture to its moral foundations.

To achieve their lofty goals, the AFA:

1. "Restrains evil" in the media, particularly film. 

Sort of a latter-day Catholic Legion of Decency.

2. Convinces "men of sin" to be driven to Christ. 

And that means absolutely EVERYONE. America MUST be a Christian-only nation.

3. Encourages Christians to live-out their new "holy identity."

Bludgeoning your co-workers with biblical passages and righteousness around the water-cooler is definitely OK.

4. Strengthens families and protects them from "government intrusion" and "preserves the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of a husband and wife." 

In other words, we're anti-liberal and virulently anti-gay, get over it.

And Above all, "AFA defends the rights of conscience and religious liberty from infringement by government and from subjugation in popular culture."

Since we defend RELIGIOUS liberty, atheists aren't protected by any law and it's OK to hate Muslims because, as Bryan Fischer put it, they're not really protected by the First Amendment. Oh, and Lady Gaga is our sworn enemy.

That is the AMERICAN FAMILY Association: an anti-gay, anti-Muslim, Christian-only organization that wants to mold everyone into virginal TV sitcom characters using, as Rick Warren puts it, "Whatever It Takes." 

And these days "it takes" one weapon to achieve what the AFA defines as The American Family: fear. A quick look at its website can show us disdain and fear-mongering.

Yes, their definitions are skewed in the extreme, but groups like the AFA don't realize just how many people they turn off with their UN-American, ANTI-Family (and anti-reality) stances. America has progressed (horrors! such an ugly word!) into greater acceptance and greater love of mankind through its diversity and the diversity of it core family units. In its own way, the AFA is trying to destroy the American Family.

So will Uber-Christians like Bryan Fischer ever go too far and be chastised? 

Probably not. The failure of the Christian Right to ever effectively monitor their own resulted in the unfettered rise of Fred Phelps. The damage done by Bryan Fischer has only elicited a lofty and disingenuous "we are not responsible" dismissal to such thoughts. 

So the real American Family is now under attack by organizations with "American" and "Family" in their titles; under attack by groups dedicated to the motto of "whatever it takes." And if we want to defend the sanctity of its beautiful diversity, we might have to start being as profane as our enemies. 

Sad, but true.

*E.g.: Family Research Council and American Family Association 

** The Pew Forum research done in 2008 of the "Networking" of the American Family shows just how much and how little the American Family has changed: the majority of families still eat dinner together and prize family time over all other activities. However, the makeup of the family has changed: single mothers with children, grown children with elderly parents, gay couples with children, extended families. Groups like the American Family Association will always denigrate these groups by saying that they not "real" families. 

Hey Fatty! Stop Goin' To Church So Much!!

I find this research rather silly, but possibly true:

According to a new study by Northwestern University's School of Medicine, young adults who attend religious activities once a week or more are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age than their non-church-going peers.

Previous studies had established a correlation between religious involvement and obesity, but this is the first time that researchers have established religious involvement as a contributing cause of weight gain. By tracking participants' weight over time and adjusting for differences in age, race, sex, education, income, and baseline body mass index, the Northwestern team was able to show that "normal weight younger adults with high religious involvement became obese, rather than obese adults becoming more religious."

So let's get this straight (ahem): as you grow older, you can show how religious you are if you go through ten pants sizes, but if you're getting fat when you're middle-aged, the size of your pants doesn't mean squat and you're probably going to hell.

Freedom Of Religion The Bryan Fischer Way!

Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the social conservative group the American Family Association, says that when it comes to Islam, the First Amendment is a privilege, not a right. "Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam," Fischer wrote today.

Such is the slippery slope of Christofascism. The First Amendment was written to protect all religions, but Fischer does not think Islam is a proper religion.

"The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity." He might have said, "Christianity alone," for it the statement meant.

While you're trying desperately to digest that form of bigotry and Islamophobia, watch this old sketch with the two Stephens battling it out. It's hysterical!

Life Without St. Liz

Can a woman who belonged to no particular denomination, converted to Judaism, married 8 times, played Cleopatra on screen and off, and scandalized the world with her affairs be made a saint? Benedict XVI certainly wouldn't approve, but there are many people who would nominate her and pray to her image every day. 

Elizabeth Taylor was beautiful to almost everyone: in her marriages she took a stance: you had to be a strong personality, and if you thought you had to compete, then you didn't stand a chance. She attracted both sexes. She learned early on that celebrity status could be used for fun and for compassion. She proved to be what she was most proud of: a survivor. She was vulnerable to physical illness but not to critics of her choice of lifestyle. She was passionate about the people who were her friends* - and she made friends everywhere. She became devoted to helping people with AIDS at a time when many people (e.g. Mike Huckabee) wanted to quarantine the entire gay community. Her compassion seemed eternal. She seemed eternal ... and the patron saint of survivors. 

But, like Benedict XVI, people noticeably shunned her... or at least her persona. 

My mother, only knowing of Elizabeth Taylor's affairs and husbands, (never seeing any of her movies and not knowing of her philanthropy) called her a "high-priced whore." Pulpits screamed about her affair with Richard Burton and synagogues whispered of her seemingly cavalier conversion to Judaism (she was raised in Christian Science). Yes, there were a lot of people through the years who hated the very image of Elizabeth Taylor. They failed to realize that their hatred was against a persona which they themselves had helped to create: every move, every role, every outfit, every love affair was magnified ten times by the excoriations of sacred cows. To them she was a dreaded feminist, screen goddess, home wrecker, libertine, and glamorous evil that pervaded Hollywood. The more they reviled her, the more alluring she became to the American public. She was simply her own person - a person she would not have been if she had followed the dictates of a crumbling Hollywood system  and a group of self-righteous malcontents. 

Some people would go to extravagant lengths to prove that St. Liz had an evil side: on JesusIsSaviour.com Elizabeth is aligned with the Satan because she once gave the "I love you" sign for the deaf and everyone knows that the inventor of the sign, Helen Keller, "was an occultist and Theosophist."

So Elizabeth Taylor will never be canonized a saint. Her image will not grace churches. Miracles will not be attributed to her. Schools will not be named after her. No one will celebrate her birthday or her feast day. People will not hawk her relics. 

Elizabeth Taylor, however, is enshrined everywhere: in art (Andy Warhol's painting of her recently sold for $62 million), in film, in the annuls of charity, in history. She is also shrined in our hearts. 

It will be difficult surviving without Elizabeth Taylor in our lives to tell us how to survive and help others to survive. It will be live without her presence emanating glamor and compassion. To whom can we turn to for advice on living? To whom can we turn to when we need a friend? Our friend, our mistress, our confidante is gone. Hopefully, she is still with us, observing and helping us in her own inimitable way.

Thank you, St. Liz, for everything you've done for us. Please look after us. Amen. 

*She saved the life of actor Montgomery Clift: after a car crash, she saw that he was choking on something, reached into his mouth and pulled out the back teeth that were lodged in his throat. She then covered his head and yelled to the attendant paparazzi that if they didn't leave, she would personally see that they would never work in Hollywood again.

Pray Away The Gay - Or Just Ejaculate It Out?

“When they would ejaculate, they would be getting rid of the evil thoughts in their mind,” Girouex allegedly told detectives.

Just when you thought you've heard about all the wacko sex therapies to turn gays into straights, there comes along another one that blasts you out into the stratosphere:

A former youth pastor in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says he had sex with teenage boys because it was his pastoral duty “to help (the teen) with homosexual urges by praying while he had sexual contact with him.”

Evidently he was "called to duty" hundreds of times, according to the young men who told authorities that he had molested them when they were as young as 11. And his sessions of "sexual purity" were held in his home. 

Makes "Bishop Eddie Long" look positively virginal. 

Why The "Kill Team" Photos Are NOT Abu Ghraib Redux

The German news magazine Der Spiegel on Monday published photographs of atrocities carried out last year by members of a US Army unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan. One photo includes an American soldier smiling for the camera as he lifts the head of a dead Afghan civilian like a hunter after bagging his game.

Der Spiegel published three photos, but it and Der Spiegel TV have reportedly obtained 4,000 photographs and videos from a collection belonging to a suspected member of a US army “kill team.”

I suppose I should write about morality. I don't want to write about morality right now because morality is much more an issue of the heart than of the mind and, therefore, relative. Some people abhor the word "relative", but it's the only word at hand for the moment. But I must write about morality today, the day in which I must write about another subject: the "Kill Team."  

"Everyone would share the photographs," one of the defendants, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, told investigators. "They were of every guy we ever killed in Afghanistan."

Comparisons to the Abu Ghraib scandal are in the thousands, but the exploits of the "Kill Team" were slightly different: at Abu Ghraib, people were tortured and humiliated for sport. In Afghanistan, people were killed for sport. At Abu Ghraib, photos were the stuff of souvenirs. In Afghanistan, body parts were souvenirs. There were hundreds of photos at Abu Ghraib. There were thousands of photos in Afghanistan. Most of the men at Abu Ghraib were prisoners of war. Some of the bodies in Afghanistan were civilians. Abu Ghraib was considered an isolated incident. Photos and "souvenirs" were shared and traded throughout a larger segment of the military. 


While American soldiers are increasing their vigilance and preparing for anti-American riots and violence, we really have to think about the causes of this latest black mark on our military: what made these young men so callus to human life? And while their brigade took some very heavy losses, was sheer vengeance the motive?

A total of 12 soldiers have had criminal charges leveled against them. All are from the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which is based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. Only five have been accused of murder, but the rest are alleged to have carried out a host of other violent crimes.

There are 76 charges against the 12 ranging from murder to assault. One charge deals with the threats made on the whistle-blower's life. Another charge is leveled against Staff Sgt. Gibbs (Billings, MT) who had in his possession  numerous human bones. 

Morality is, as I've said, relative. While some say it is an absolute, static thing, others compare it to a tree with huge limbs and many branches, but with deep roots in humanity. Is it possible that the people of Afghanistan have been dehumanized (both in their own country and in the U.S.) to the point that they have become objects of sport? Or is it possible that some of our soldiers  themselves have become dehumanized by a war that has little meaning? 

And what of their roots in humanity? Do they have any? Of course they do, but maybe their roots are being fed with poisonous ideologies and they are not well-prepared for alien cultures. Yes, there will be comparisons to Abu Ghraib, but the most horrifying conclusion of these comparisons is that evidence of the "kill team" is worse.

Like war itself, the discovery of torture and humiliation for fun at Abu Ghraib was supposed to deter men from repeating atrocities, but it seems some men never learn.

Something's Still Phishy in Philly

No news reports about John Joe Thomas and his "The Bible told me so" confession. Methinks something is missing in this case and it isn't the brains of the defendant. 

Speculation is abounding in this case and unless Thomas' defense or the prosecution come up with more facts or testimonies, angry villagers with torches will be storming the Upper Darby jail house. I'll admit that I'm hooked as well: there's got to be more substance than what everyone else has been given. Whether Thomas really hears "voices" or not may not be as important as the presence of a third party telling Thomas that gays should be stoned to death. Or telling Thomas that he should "plead the Bible."

Christian Aid in Japan To "Believers" Only???

While reading this, I was struck by the term "believers." It could of course, be a simple mistake of grammar that made this entreaty look exclusive, but I think not. Not the way to  get converts, guys!

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 18, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Christian Aid relief coordinator for Japan is calling Americans to pray and collect aid in Sunday services for the Fukusima families who lost loved ones in last week's killer quake.

Christian Aid Mission is sending the aid to Japanese believers working among residents evacuated from the nuclear reactor town on the northeastern coast of Japan. Fukusima is located just below the epicenter of the quake near Sendai.

Stoning The "Homo To Death"

Will we see more facts emerge in this bizarre case? How will the Christian Right react? (OK, predictable: "So he's insane - it's not our fault!"). Will John Joe Thomas' parents shed more light on the murder? Who will defend him? What will be the plea? Will a third party emerge? Yeah, kids, it's like a soap opera. 

And Some Will Laugh: The Bible "Told Me To Stone The Homo To Death!"

"He thought it might happen."

The people of Upper Darby, PA are wondering what led John Joe Thomas to bludgeon to death a man   who, from all accounts, thought of him as a trusted and close friend: mental instability? Gay panic? Money? "Voices"? The Bible? The video below doesn't really say much. In fact, what it doesn't say speaks volumes. All there is to know now is: 

Murray Seidman, 70, was a man born with brain damage who amazed doctors at his ability to live and maintain employment - enough to retire from his job as a worker at a psychiatric hospital. He met John Joe Thomas while Thomas was being treated at the same hospital. The two men spent a lot of time together, Thomas visiting Seidman in his apartment as often as every a day. Seidman liked and trusted Thomas enough to make him a beneficiary of his will as well as give him power of attorney. 

Thomas reported to police that he had discovered Seidman's body in his apartment, but could not go in with them because of "all the blood." While being held on separate charges of public lewdness and disorderly conduct (in another, unrelated case), police received testimony from a witness who said that Thomas had confessed to killing a man. He described how he had put batteries and a rock in a sock and hit Seidman at least 10 times. When arrested, Thomas told police that his "prayers" told him that Seidman needed to be punished by stoning him to death because Sediman had for a time been making homosexual advances and the Bible said that "homosexuals should be stoned to death."

Someone, somewhere is enjoying themselves right now: "These two loonies got together and the old homo got stoned!"  Come on, you know they are. Nobody's stopping them. Nobody's reprimanding them. They're laughing in Scott Lively's  Lithuania and Russia. They're laughing in Lou Engle's and Martin Sssempe's Uganda. They're laughing (softly) in some churches. They're laughing in the restrooms of Congress. 

The Bible and the mentally ill: it's not exactly as I've written before, that clergy have a habit of "keeping them clueless," but the cause is still the same - demonizing. Demonizing someone - anyone - has a much more lasting effect than its antidote - love. Demonizing has taken its toll in millions of untold stories: hatred, revenge, jealousy, righteous assassination and suicide. The "Blood Libel" against the Jews caused casualties we can only begin to fathom. John Joe Thomas' "prayers" told him to kill Murray Seidman, but who/what caused the "prayers" to be real in the mind of Thomas? The Bible alone? Or someone who told him what the Bible "says"? It's important to look at the details of this case (such as they are): the explicit chapter and verses in Leviticus do not immediately mete out punishments with stoning, only stating that "they shall be put to death." Thomas probably could not have put together the ideas of "put to death" and "stoning" by himself. The portmanteau ideology had to come from somewhere other than Thomas' Bible. 

So this situation presents an interesting case for "righteous assassination": instead of the media, we might actually be able to narrow the cause down to a small group of people - or to even one person ... or pastor.


If the case plays out more in the media, the Right will automatically say "we aren't responsible for every mentally disturbed murder," just as they have in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. But if the defense digs deeply into all the other relationships in John Joe Thomas' life, they might be able to point to more than just the Bible and "prayers."


The Alliance Defense Fund might step up to the plate not only to defend John Joe Thomas, but to shield to whomever his thoughts of righteousness might be traced. 

View more videos at: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com.

Uganda - Again. The New "Kill The Gays Bill" Is WORSE Than The Old One!

As it stands now, the current "Kill The Gays Bill" on Uganda's legislative rostrum would make it illegal for lawyers to defend gays in court, since doing so would "promote" homosexuality. 


Tell me this: how can a country such as Uganda hope to come into the twenty-first century when it hasn't yet come out of the fourteenth?

Ann Coulter's Brain Is Fried!!

We always knew that Ann Coulter's brain was fried, but now we know why: she think's radiation is good for you! That's right, it's good for you! This clip of her on Bill O'Reilly's show proves that she's still willing to say anything to get attention. Well, it worked, 'cause I'm giving it to her - in spades!


Remember, this is a woman who thinks that waterboarding is a harmless childhood prank ... and to jump-start her mornings, she has to pee on at least ten homeless people (fifteen,  if she's got a hang-over!).

Compassion Without Evangelism: What Japan Needs Vs. What Japan Will Get

What if Japan needs compassion but not evangelism? After all, it's not quite that ... primitive.

The stamina and resilience of the Japanese people throughout history has been amazing. Since 1849 and the entrance of Commodore Perry into Yokohama,* Japan has slowly (at first) but steadily managed to adapt through industry and perseverance. But, as with most cultures, times of stress can make even the most resilient people vulnerable. And in the wake of the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear meltdown catastrophe, the critical question is not if Japan will be vulnerable, but to what: economic manipulation? political maneuvers? social movements?

Many westerners hope that the Japanese will be vulnerable to (i.e., receptive of) religious evangelism: evangelism at the other end of compassion, that is. What they may find out, however, is that a new kind of compassion is emerging: meet the basic needs of humanity (food, shelter, clothing medical supplies) and forget the rest. The Japanese can take care of themselves in all the other categories, thank you very much. 

That form of self-assurance is evident in the first-responders to Japan's crises: they were immediate and humanitarian. They were not, however, dogmatic. They did not affix their responses to any belief system. In other words, they did not attribute their compassion to being "the Christian thing to do," nor were they spurred on by a list of morals in front of their courthouses. The fact that they acted in compassion, of course, may be attributed to the fact that they were responding to the terrible plight of their own people, as so many Americans bravely responded in relief efforts for the victims of Katrina. But when it comes down to the reasoning of people like (pseudo) historian David Barton, compassion and humanitarianism must be compared in relation to how "Christian" the country perceives itself. 

Japan is therefore, an anomaly that Christian evangelists should treat with the utmost respect. 

They won't, of course. Already we are experiencing the declarations of "God's retribution." It is unfortunate, but the Christian Right in our country will never act in a solely humanitarian way without taking the chance of voicing some form of self-righteousness:

From One News Now (American Family Association)

Jan Markell, founder and director of Olive Tree Ministries, is hopeful the events in Japan will open the eyes of many to things spiritual.

"These so-called 'birth pangs' really are intensifying and getting greater and more frequent -- and I think it's a wake-up call, not just for the Japanese," she offers. "We'd all like to think that the nation of Japan would turn and repent as a result of what happened. [While] we know that won't happen, we know individuals will." (emphasis mine)

A Matter of Education

Maybe the problem lies in education: the Japanese may be too educated for the Christian Right to pierce through. And remember that almost all of that education is (horrors!)... secular. For the last four decades, Japan has towered over the United States in matters of education: its students have scored in the top 10 (out of 57 countries) in the world arenas of science, math and reading comprehension (U.S. students rank in the lower third). Most of the country believes in evolution and looks upon Christian scriptures as allegory and metaphor, as it would any religious system. (Aside: contrary to the belief of most Christians, Buddhism is not really a religion - at least not in the sense of placing gods or a God at its core. It is quite possible for a Christian to practice many tenets of Buddhism without becoming an apostate. Confucianism is a system of ethics and government. Both of these "religions" make up the bulk of Japanese philosophy and both aspire to the Golden Rule. As for the Shinto religion, it is ingrained into Japanese history and mythology and is coupled with Buddhist philosophy on spirituality**)




The generalization of all Japanese as "atheists" is a silly mistake, but one that Fundamentalists are always prone to make, since their arrogant stance of one-and-only will not allow for any other religion or philosophy to have merit. People like Cindy Jacobs, ruminating that Japan's disasters were caused by its inability to embrace Christianity and its adherence to "pagan" theologies, are quite willing to insult the Japanese intellect because they cannot conceive of anything being superior to their beliefs. We can only hope that the Japanese will not take the insult seriously. 


Ed Schultz, in taking a different stance on the "looting question" (see below) inadvertently pointed out that Glenn Beck was pointing to Japan as having ethics and morals despite being "atheist." Ever the prince of fools, Beck didn't realize that he was making it very difficult for evangelists and Mormon missionaries to proselytize ... and insult. 


The end point of this whole polemic is that evangelists will insist on taking advantage of Japan's tragic events (for which I must call them - as many readers know is my pet phrase - "God's Ambulance Chasers") and Japan will politely but firmly decline their offers of "conditional compassion." 


And the "good" people of Japan will continue doing "good" and being "good" - without the remonstrations of Jan Markell, Lou Engle or Cindy Jacobs. 


* wikipedia: On July 8, 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy with four warships—the Mississippi,Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna—steamed into the bay in Yokohama and displayed the threatening power of his ships' cannons during a Christian burial which the Japanese observed. He requested that Japan open to trade with the West. These ships became known as the kurofune, the Black Ships.


**wikipedia: The era of State Shinto came to an abrupt close with the end of World War II, when Americans decided to bring separation of church and state to Japanese shores in the wake of the Japanese surrender.

Most Japanese had come to believe that the hubris of Empire had led to their downfall. The Shinto system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito, was divine. Soon after the war, the Emperor issued a statement renouncing his claims to the status of "living god" (arahitogami). 

Poor? Got $20 In Your Pocket? YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!!

I know this seems unfathomable, but Minnesota lawmakers want to make it a crime for poor people who live on food stamps to have any more than $20 cash - FOR THE MONTH!!  So, be careful who you're giving money to on the street, he might get picked up by the cops for being too rich!!

Japan's Honesty: 10 Gloaters: 0

Anyone who has seen Big Bird in Japan knows the shorthand for Japanese culture: They're so honest and disciplined! They're a collective society! They value the group over the individual! Of course they're not going to steal anything after the most devastating natural disaster of their lifetimes—unlike those undisciplined thieves in post-Katrina New Orleans and post-earthquake Haiti. Even if they're desperate for food, the Japanese will still wait in line for groceries.
                                                                                                                 - Christopher Beam, Salon


I've just posted an article on members of the Christian Right gloating over prophecies ignored by Japan. The arguments range from "God punished Japan because of atheism" to "God shook Japan because it's shaped like a dragon." Thankfully, Japan has not listened to any of these inane comments. Japan is a self-confident and self-disciplined society and despite the tragedies, it has had very few instances of looting. 


Hmmm. Wouldn't an ATHEIST, GODLESS, BUDDHIST, CONFUCIAN country like Japan be in complete chaos with looters everywhere? 


The Gloaters are going to have a tough time explaining this one.