Bracing for the Worst

I'm posting this teaser a day ahread of time. It's one of the most important (and frightening) articles I've ever attempted. We must brace for the worst cpoming out in the Christian Right: if Romney wins, we'll definitely see a surge in righteous arrogance and a clamping down on reproductive and gay rights. If Obama wins, the Christian Right will definitely be a tiger to be reckoned with: the poor Presidetn will receive more hate mail and deat threats - an imprecatory prayers than ever.

Stay tuned....

Life Begins After Thanksgiving

Yes, it does. 


Life does not, as many think, come to a grinding halt after eating too much turkey. In fact, whether you eat turkey at all has nothing to do with your life's continuance: it's a fact that life continues. Especially after you eat something.


It continues...and continues. 


And so has mine. 


That's why I'm continuing to write.


Continuing to have faith in humanity.
Continuing to help people out of the morass of a Christian Right-dominated country.
Continuing to look for a job. Writing.  Because I want one. Because I need one. 


Really.


Actually, life begins each time we think it might likely end. It surprises us by continuing and in continuing from a moribund state, it begins anew. It's rather insidious that way, life is. 


But I'm not complaining: I love life as long as it gives me purpose, which is, right now, kicking the Christian Right's ass every second it breathes and makes precious life so miserable for everyone with its righteous arrogance. 


Ah, there's an apt phrase: righteous arrogance. It connotes total sin, or rather the cause of so much sin. It has been the cause of wars, genocide and suicide. It founded the Ku Klux Klan. It furrowed the Trail of Tears. It decimated Meso America. It caused a young man to leap from a bridge after his sexual encounter with another man was posted on YouTube.


It started Hell Houses. 


So I've begun, after Thanksgiving, to restore my crusade (ok, wrong word) against righteous arrogance and its perpetual perpetrator the Christian Right. Oh, I may get strident enough to call it the Christofascist Right, such is my abhorrence of the group, but I vow not to become so strident that I lose sight of my second goal: humor. For we are at war, the Christian Right and I, and I have chosen one of the best weapons of modern man: laughter. For as Mark Twain put it:

"Against the assault of laughter, 

nothing can stand."

Was It A Christian Jihad In Norway? You Decide. Breivik's Video Looks Like Bryan Fischer Made It!

"One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests."           -posted by Anders Behring Breivik on Twitter


" Dam I would celebrate if this Viking sonuva bitch opened up that machine gun on a bunch of Muslims."

         - From Facebook wall of Anders Behring Breivik

Anders Behring Breivik and Timothy McVeigh: the parallels came dropping down like gumball-sized hailstones. The government building in Oslo was repeatedly compared to the Federal building in Oklahoma City. Both Breivik and McVeigh were clean-cut looking young men. Both men had an animosity towards the established government.


McVeigh's background, however, did not point to a particularly religious person, while Brievik's video (below) shows an obsession with the term of "Christian Soldier" and the Crusades. 


The video is exceptionally revealing and may be the only solid link to Breivik's motive - no matter what he says in his upcoming court date. It is unyielding in its hatred for Islam and Muslims. It features multiculturalism as the worst thing to happen to mankind because it will give way to a rising population of Islamists, thereby allowing them to eventually rule the world. It is arrogant in its righteousness. It paints himself as the only hope left. 


When you see it, you cannot help to think that it was written by an American who has voiced the same opinion every time: if Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association didn't write the script for the video, who did?




 

HIS SENTIMENTS EXACTLY

Bryan Fischer has once again proven that righteous arrogance breeds stupidity. His tweet makes him look just as bad as Anders Berhing Breivik is in its hatred for everything Muslim. It also insinuates his tolerance for violence. And putting the word Christian in quotes denotes a flaccid attempt at distancing himself from his obvious doppelganger. Millions of America's whitewashed public will be screaming "not me!" but no one will hear them from the din Fischer creates.   

Fischer will harp on the fact that, while almost everyone in Norway is baptized at birth, only 2% of country are regular church goers. Norway is the most secular country in Europe. We'll hear phrases not too unlike "getting what it deserves." Oh, others will chime in: Pat Robertson, Lou Engle, Franklin Graham, Cindy Jacobs, Rod Parsley to name a few. But no one will use Norway's tragedy like Fischer - a virtuoso of anti-Islamic hatred and intolerance; a hatred so embedded in America's psyche that media first-responders automatically assumed Muslims were involved in both the bombing and the massacre. And most of them sloughed off the possibility of an "apology" to the Muslim world and to Islam.

Another Case of Righteous Assassination?

At first another parallel seems weak, but given time, it grows: Byron Williams, who, almost EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO (July 21, 2010) was discovered in an attempt to terrorize the Tides Foundation and the ACLU. At that time, broadcaster Glenn Beck was linked to the attempted massacre. Now, however, the Oslo/Utoya tragedy can be linked to aggressive evangelism that does nothing to control the religious intolerance it creates. 




It has just been discovered that Anders Behring Breivik also wrote a kind of treatise/manifesto under the anglicized name of Andrew Berwick. You can download the entire 1500+ pages HERE. It is titled 2083 - a Declaration of European Independence. And while it  is mostly a rambling jumble of other writers, it strives to be an intelligent spin on Breivik's phobia against "multiculturalism" and perhaps one of the most revealing statements about Breivik's religion comes in this part (Kyle Spotswood):

Christianity is a way of life, and life involves power relationships, Christianity is at once a political way of life. One can not separate out ones politics from ones faith and beliefs, they are intertwined as ones beliefs effects ones politics. Thus, within the Christian worldview, there is no separation of ‘Christianity’ and ‘politics’, as distinct spheres, ‘politics’ is but another sphere of the way of life that is Christianity. Politics is subsumed within Christianity.

Bryan Fischer and "historian" David Barton would definitely agree with that statement.


So were Anders Behring Breivik's actions part of a Christian Jihad? Not an organized one, but possibly one that carried out a blueprint set out  by the likes of our own Bryan Fischer and leaders of our own Christian Right.

The REAL Sissy Boys And What They're Doing To America

So will the SBC apologize? Gimme a break!

Four days ago, Anderson Cooper360 and CNN ran a series which focused on the tip of a proverbial iceberg: "The Sissy Boy Experiment" brought out the frustration and the compassion of America's psyche. It also brought out the hypocrisy of "reparative therapists" and their supporters in the Christian Right.


So why isn't anyone saying "we're sorry"?


Because the REAL "sissy boys" the ones so cowardly, so unmanly, if you will,  never apologize. Where some people see apology as a sign of strength/courage in admitting an error or sin, others look upon it as a weakness: e.g. why did it take the Southern Baptist Convention over 150 years to apologize for slavery? Why did it take the Catholic church 1700 years for a pope to cry at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall?


Over the last several days, we've viewed the ultimate in cowardice in George "rentboy" Rekers on CNN (The Sissy Boy Experiment): his reaction to news of the suicide of former patient Kirk Murphy was, at best, disingenuous, and his sloughing off of any responsibility was weak and unprofessional. And on the 15th, we'll witness the disdain of the Southern Baptist Convention in being asked to apologize for the persecution and suffering heaped upon the LGBTQ community.


I've already written on the Christian Right's refusal to admit its past errors (Christian Crime Line), but its more current misdeeds need further exploration: the establishment of ex-gay organizations and ministries, the support of Dominionist historians, pseudo-scientists and fear-mongering against any collective not within its small but powerful sphere threaten to undo the diversity for which our country is so celebrated.


It is as if the Christian Right has taken up shock talk host Michael Savage's call to battle: "Diversity Equals Perversity!" One can certainly see in Bryan Fischer's bombastic rants a lethal kind of homogenization (not assimilation) that will not only kill compassion for one another, but will surely lead to actual bloodshed. The last part of The Sissy Boy Experiment focused on Joseph Nicolosi and his group NARTH (National Association for Reparative Therapy of Homosexuals). CNN missed a particular salient point in its interview with Nicolosi: he is no longer a member of the American Psychological Association, since his ethics and theories were discredited by fellow members. In fact, Nicolosi and professional anti-gay Paul Cameron look as if they are in a contest to see how many professional organizations they can be expelled from!


Real Life Persecution


Besides sponsoring reparative therapy and ex-gay organizations, the Southern Baptist roots to LGBT oppression go back to the first decades of the AIDS crisis: many people were summarily kicked out of their homes while they were sick and dying. The situation, after all, called for righteousness and Southern Baptists wanted the world to know that they were the most righteous group of all. This show of righteousness came after President Bailey Smith's infamous statement "God Almighty does not hear the prayers of a Jew" and the dictum that women must still be subservient to their husbands.*


Among the most common of sins within (as well as without) the Christian Right is the blatant sin of demonizing, but who among the CR will acknowledge it? Will Lou Engle apologize for the death of Ugandan homosexual activist David Kato? Will Scott Lively do the same? Will Tony Perkins apologize for the rash of gay teen suicides last year? Will Bryan Fischer? Will Rev. Keenan Roberts apologize for psychological damage caused by Hell Houses? Will Terry Jones apologize for the death of U.N. volunteers after he burned the Q'uran?


One might posit the idea that they will never apologize, so why should we be concerned? The problem, as some see it, is that our recent religious-political system has been getting away with saying and doing anything it pleases. It never monitors itself: if, for example, Jones had not gotten the attention of the whole world, we would not have witnessed such an outcry from the Right - especially from the Christian Right. Proper chastisement is for the enemy. In any case, Jones was not really chastised since most of the churches with a Fundamentalist bent merely whispered "he's not one of us!"


Media's "sissy boys" have also written/broadcast half-truths and misinformation with impunity: even though FOX News' credibility has slipped, it continues to advertise itself as "fair and balanced."** Watch the piece Think Progress put together about Bill O'Reilly and his demonization of immigrants. It's almost musical in its rhythm, picking its own "fair and balanced" way through O'Reilly's righteous indignation.


In politics, some of the biggest "sissy boys" are bullies:

Gov. Scott Walker abruptly reversed course today and demoted the son of a large campaign contributor [Jerry Deschane] to his former job with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing. The move comes one day after the Journal Sentinel reported that Brian Deschane, 27, had landed an $81,500-a-year job in Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. The promotion amounted to a raise of 26%. The younger Deschane has no college degree, little management experience and two drunken driving convictions.

No cure, but a push back!


So the country's REAL "sissy boys" are practically everywhere, getting away with bullying and demonizing minorities, women, gays, the poor, and anyone else not fitting into their narrow spectrum. But like all "sissy boys" they are extremely afraid of some things: the facts, experts, and activists armed with knowledge (and creativity). 


Once confronted with their sins, they will try to shirk accountability, but like kids fighting in a schoolyard, the bullies will quickly become sissies when pinned down by determined, constant, intelligent presentation of reality to the public. 


You have to make the "sissy boy" scream "Uncle!"


*Reiterated by Pat Robertson more than several times.
** Joe.My.God: "According to a former managing editor at Fox News, chairman Roger Ailes installed bullet-proof glass on his midtown Manhattan office windows because he feared assassination by gay activists." 

What Biblically Illicit Sex Costs A Christofascist Minister: A Rent Boy, A Son...

And One Hugely Homophobic Career

Yes, I'm another one of those vile, liberal predators of any scandal-worthy "Man of God." I certainly had fun skewering Ted Haggard. So when the story of Rev. George Rekers and his "rent boy" came out, I couldn't get off my feedback fast enough. But now I've had enough time to reflect on the situation and I've come to some sobering questions: what will happen to his adopted son? Did he know what his dad was doing? Was he a hustler when he was adopted? Has he ever met "Lucien"/Geo?

Let's give Rekers Jr. the benefit of a doubt and assume that he is not as stupid as his father. He knows what his father has been doing, at least in payments to young men to be his "attendent." He was "found" on Facebook by Joe My God, but has not responded to any inquiries. His statement (when it does come out - and it will) will be revealing in what it will say ... or what it won't say. If he spouts Scripture too frequently, then Reker Sr. may be in for some furious accusations of religious brainwashing. If his son's statement seems too forced (or too short), then the public will assume that he's hiding something. In any case, there is way too much pressure on him.

Rekers' career as a professional ex-gay "professional expert" and NARTH leader may now be over. The Family Research Council has already erased any mention of his being a co-founder along with Christian Right icon James Dobson. It's a wonder that he wasn't exposed earlier, but titles and employments can shield a man from scrutiny: here is a man whose curriculum vitae looks as if it were stuffed too full with pristine qualifications for any anti-gay and homophobic group not to salivate over. He has a doctorate in neuro-psychiatry, a Doctor of Divinity degree, a kind of "Dr. Phil" for confused teens (just look at his website), and has many book titles and papers under his name. True, some of his associations deserve a second look, (American College of Pediatricians may be bogus) but most of his connections have been beyond reproach.

Until now.

Now Dr. Rekers has taken his 10+ image and turned it into one of a man who (according to rent boy Geo) surrounds himself with barely legal boys for motives other than sound Christian ministering. Is he so stupid that he thinks people will fall for his I'm-just-like-Jesus-surrounding-myself-with-sinners take on the affair? How many ministers does he know who PAY for the privilege of ministering to hustlers?

And what will Geo do? Will he be able to stand the noteriety? Will he know how to handle all the salacious media requests? Will he be able to pull off a kind of Levi Johnston?

Massage, good times, Travel, escort for days, nights and weekends, My name's Geo. 20 year old, 5'9'', 130 pounds, 28'' waist size,8x6" UNCUT, VERSATILE, NICE ASS. Puerto Rican, fair/light-Skin, blond hair, blue eyes and athletic/muscular built. I'm a college guy, masculine, educated, really of the easy-going, great to get along with, can hold a conversation and passionate You could just say I love to have a good time. Very clean, professional, HIV and Disease FREE. For a sensual meet or companionship. Will do anything you say as long as you ask ;D Repeat encounters are always more exciting for me and make it more casual and comfortable for you as well. Call or text anytime. 

Joe.My.God: 

Dr. Rekers, how much DOES it cost for ten days with a barely legal, blond, hung, uncut, bisexual Puerto Rican who is happy to spank you and shove it up your gelatinous vile bigoted ass?

Good question. What would a good "vacation" with a rentboy cost? Someone of Lucien/Geo's caliber could be $300 for an evening. Hmmm...

Cost of rentboy for 10 days: $5000

Airfare: $2500

Accomodations in London: $3000

Sightseeing and eating out: $2500

Going to bed with someone 42 years younger than you: priceless.

And it was not the only time Rekers had traveled with "Julien." An email read: "I'd like to propose another trip to Rome, Italy, for a week or more."

Was his first trip to Rome before or after his "surgery"? Too many questions unanswered. Too many motives to consider. 

About the only thing that is certain at this point: three lives have been ruined. 

Just a thought.