~ The Rainfish Chronicles ~

2012-12-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

~ Who watches the Watchers?"~

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? This a Latin phrase from the Roman poet Juvenal, variously translated as: "Who watches the watchmen?"

"Who watches the watchers?"... "Who will guard the guards?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F

LINDSEY GRAHAM IS GAY FOR HAM BISCUITS!

2011-08-26T15:24:00.001-06:00

A video by http://www.youtube.com/user/MOKandRIFF...

"Such a cool guy!"

We Are Married....Let No On Put Asunder

2011-07-26T05:39:00.000-06:00

A Personal Essay by Bud Evans

My spouse and I were married on September 13, 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We have been together for more than thirty years. When we arrived back home in Kansas, the sky did not fall; dairy cows did not stop producing milk, and gravity was still intact -- although common sense and common decency seemed to have left our segment of the planet under the seemingly endless Kansas prairie sky. Yes, we got the expected "Welcome Back Home to the Good ol' USA!" reception alright to which we've sadly grown accustomed as Gay and Lesbian Americans.

For months, the vile malevolent specter of our very own local home-grown Kansas State Anti-Equality "Heterosexuals Only" so-called Marriage Amendment hung over our heads like the shadowy silhouette of a cowardly mugger ready to strike in ambush from a dark alley. Finally, in early April 2005, a Kansas lynch-mob, drunk with power and prejudice, at last had their little necktie party and strung up our Bill of Rights in the public square of totalitarianism. Apparently, American neo-fascists aren't satisfied with just being the insufferable bully on the international block, they must also have their pound of flesh at home too.

So what is so surprising about this scenario? Obviously there is not enough conflict in the world, so malicious malcontents in Kansas, as well as throughout most of the US, feel the need to stir up the flames of division even more. All of this brings to mind my saddest and most sustained observation concerning the United States in general. It is in regard to her citizenry's constantly evolving contempt for other Americans. Overall, it is Mankind's greatest single flaw too. But in the USA it is the perversion of Christian fellowship and tolerance that is being twisted into a pseudo-religious/right-wing political dogma of dissimulation and group-hate which will be the next great stain on America.

Political gay-bashing and religion-based bigotry has quickly become this new century's equivalent of racism, gender inequality and ethnic strife. Fanatical homophobia has been effortlessly revived and poisonously retooled from the last century’s panoply of prejudices so eagerly embraced in these perpetually un-United States. Once again, the drama is much the same -- only the characters on the stage are played by different actors.

As this tragedy unfolds, those whose duty it is to uphold America’s promise of equality once again turn a blind eye to this country’s absolute assurances of equal justice. How did this nation’s immutable guarantees of liberty degenerate into such an arrogant and heartless popularity contest in America? If you don’t like your neighbor, just simply write them out of the Constitution. Is that it? Is that all it takes to make them disappear? Just fashion a paper noose out of group-specific malicious laws and then lynch your neighbor on a gallows once called the Bill of Rights. Is that the level of barbarity to which we have regressed in America?

No, I did not expect homophobes to throw rice at our wedding, but occasionally, albeit foolishly, I expect a modicum of class from people I do not know -- such as the simple civility of minding one’s own business. I certainly do not appreciate strangers meddling in my personal affairs; especially when it concerns my marriage. That is not only bad manners, but it is truly beneath contempt.

So, unless Canada's Marriage Laws or the few Marriage Equality U.S. "free" States fair laws are changed to reflect America's narrow-minded contempt for her own most vulnerable citizens, then my marriage will stand in at least a few zones of freedom in the U.S. as well as elsewhere abroad where equality actually means something. And there is nothing any thug in the guise of religion or government can do about it. No amount of hatred for my spouse and me will ever un-marry us. I am confident that those miscreants who envy and despise our joyful union, as well as those unethical politicians who seek political power by inciting a mob mentality in the general public, will not be looked upon favorably by history nor by future generations.

The truth is that decent people elevate themselves by their own achievements and talents; not by standing on the backs of others who are least able to defend themselves. It's a very sad commentary on modern society, as well as on this really not-so-Christian country after all, that people will still do to others what they would not tolerate having done to them. That is the classic definition of a fascist. And that is certainly not what either The Founding Fathers or Christ would have envisioned for this not-yet-great nation.

Jesus who had embraced the disenfranchised, and who had walked amongst the outcasts of society, would weep today for what is done in his name. Equally shameful is the disrespect shown to the drafters of our Bill of Rights who took great pains to protect the "inalienable rights" of the less politically powerful against the tyranny of the majority. Just try to keep in mind those words: "Liberty and Justice for All..." and "That which you do unto the least among you, you do unto me." And according to all belief systems which respect the dignity of Humankind, whether secular or religious in nature, that mandate is simply this: All people are created equal in all ways and they are endowed with the same inherent rights, in all things, as all others -- there are no exceptions. Too bad some people still refuse to see it that way.

Bigotry has always had a peculiar way of eviscerating virtue when truth becomes particularly inconvenient in advancing petty prejudices and an anti-social agenda. Whether one makes a religion out of politics (such as in Nazi Germany or in Communist regimes) or fabricates politics from religion (such as fundamentalist deity-based totalitarianism anywhere on Earth) the end result is the same. The end result is intolerance, and that is the nexus of most human strife and suffering on this planet since time immemorial.

America owes a birthright of equality in all things, great or small, under the legal umbrella of citizenship which she extends to all of her children. No one's personal religious, ethical, political or any other belief system can ever be allowed to dictate which Americans should have rights and which ones should not. If that is not anathema to the revolutionary spirit of this country and an affront to our Bill of Rights, then nothing is.

The courage to stand up for the most vulnerable citizens among us against institutional and popular prejudice is a rare act of both bravery and virtue. People of good will, working together, perhaps can someday make America a shining example of a Constitutional Republic that keeps its solemn promise of equality for all. Maybe we can remind others that this nation’s guarantee of individual liberty would never allow one faction to ever vote away another citizen’s civil rights in a thoughtless expression of group-hate. I still believe that there are good and fair people in this country. But considering the lessons of the past, I hope we don't have to wait for the next generation to grow up in order to find them.

Yes, contrary to the presuppositions of inculcated hate and politically manipulated hysteria, there really is room enough at the matrimonial table for every consenting, non-related, pair of adult human beings who wish to marry in this world -- regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, politics, gender identity or sexual orientation. It is obvious to any student of history that loving, mutually supportive same-sex romantic relationships are as old as Mankind. It has always been so and will continue to be so as long as there is a human race.

Let us also not forget that the civil rights of Gays and Lesbians are protected in most of the industrialized Western world. In those truly civilized nations, same-sex oriented individuals can be open and honest about their orientation. Even in this country, which has such a long and shameful history on the issue of human rights, homosexual intimate relationships are just as legally protected under the U.S. Constitution as heterosexual intimate relationships -- as wisely decided by the Supreme Court in the Lawrence -vs- Texas decision on June 26, 2003.

Currently, the personal lives of tens of millions of Gay and Lesbian Americans are the bloody battlegrounds where this never-ending war against civil rights is being fought. It is a war that perennially pits progress and egalitarianism against the forces of ignorance and maliciousness. We may lose many battles to those foes who divide this great house against itself -- which we call America -- but ultimately we will win the final war against the enemies of human dignity and freedom. Of that I have no doubt.

Those who fanatically and sanctimoniously wave the banner of "tradition" are in reality only selfishly trying to protect their own special status at the expense of others. Obviously, if tradition was always such a virtuous thing to uphold we’d still have slavery; women wouldn't have the right to vote, and America would have a king.

The horrors of human bondage are most often conceived and perpetuated by using that contemptible excuse of upholding the self-serving status quo. Unquestionably, when tradition is used as justification to oppress others it becomes a thing of evil and an enemy of civilization. Old notions and elitists traditions must yield to inclusiveness and egalitarianism if peace is ever to be realized and a stable society maintained.

A hallmark of civilization is marriage, and marriage is both a binding oath of mutual loyalty and a personal contract which clearly details responsibilities and rights entered into between two romantically involved individuals who pledge to share their lives with one another. That very same institution belongs to all loving, non-related, adult couples. No apartheid-like system of separate tables (i.e. civil unions, domestic partnerships, etc.) will ever suffice. To deny same-sex couples who are also engaged in constitutionally protected, intimate, mutually supportive relationships the same protections and rights that many married heterosexual couples take so easily for granted is an affront to human dignity and an assault on American principles of fairness.

Too many brave and good citizens, Gay and Straight alike, have fought and died on too many bloody battlefields so that all people can partake of freedom. No one should belittle their ultimate sacrifice by parceling out equality as if it were their own special gift to give to a favored segment of society. I truly believe (just as I previously stated in an essay I wrote which appeared in the Kansas City Star) that there is more than enough room at the same table of marriage for each of us who wish to take on all the responsibility it demands, as well as reap its rewards. As tempestuous as marriage sometimes is, it most often provides for couples pledged to one another for life, be they heterosexual or same-sex couples, the only real promise of a safe harbor in which to lay anchor and to protect their most precious cargo -- each other.

We too have sworn an oath -- to have and to hold ‘till death do us part. My spouse and I made that promise to each other officially on September 13, 2004 when we were finally, legally allowed to be married in a country to the north which respects human dignity and individual liberty. Although, I still can remember that one cold winter night on January 10th, 1975, when Bill and I first met -- we were just kids in our early twenties then. We also made that pledge, albeit unofficially, to one another. Now as then, in good times and in bad times; forsaking all others; ‘till death do us part; let no one put asunder.

It means just as much to us today as then. And perhaps just a little bit more, because at least a few more compassionate people and a few more civilized nations are finally starting to respect our right to be recognized as a family at last. They know, as we do, that love is the most important ingredient that makes a family. Families can’t exist without it. All kinds of families spring into existence because of it. That is the bedrock of marriage. Nothing else is required except devotion -- plus the courage to fight for the ones you love in the face of adversity. That is what actually makes a family. And, in case anyone forgets, that is what marriage is truly all about.

(C) Bud Evans 2006 & 2010

[originally published in 2006 and then revised in 2010 to reflect the growing number of Marriage Equality States which have joined the 21st Century by rejecting anti-GLBT bigotry as an official state policy]

(Bud Evans is a studio artist and writer who lives with his partner, Bill, for over thirty-five years who has also been his spouse since September 13, 2004 when they were legally married in Vancouver, B.C., Canada)

Spot-on Political Analysis by Crustybastard

2011-07-25T01:12:00.009-06:00

~ From a very insightful blogger by the handle of Crustybastard ~

(you might want to cover your eyes if the language bothers you, but if you don't, you might actually learn something very insightful about how politics really works in this county)

His delightful blog can be found at: http://thecrustybastard.blogspot.com/

by "the crustybastard"

[The original post was addressed to a poster by the handle of "Spike" on Queerty]

@Spike:

The purpose of third-parties is not necessarily to get the third-party candidate elected (although that might be nice.) The purpose of third-parties is to create a correcting force on an unresponsive major party.

For example, Ross Perot’s nontrivial support from the electorate derived principally from fiscally conservative “classical republicans” who had the sense to recognize that Mr. Perot was correct that the short-term job destruction caused by “free-trade agreements” would lead to a long-term economic downturn caused by toxic unemployment, which would lead to massive housing devaluation, which would lead to lender-hoarding, which would lead to prolonged stagflation.

You know — the perfect shitstorm we’ve been wallowing in since 2008?

Oh, and — having evidently not learned a goddam thing — the current president is promoting yet more “free-trade agreements,” because despite the fact that none of those treaties has ever failed to weaken the American job market and depress wages, this one will surely be the key to employment and economic recovery…this time.

::eyeroll::

Likewise, Ralph Naders’ nontrivial support from the electorate derived principally from socially liberal progressives who had the sense to recognize that Mr. Nader was correct that Democrats were doing nothing to rein in the runaway power of corporate oligarchs and the military-industrial complex who seem determined to convert the middle-class into impoverished serfs desperate for any opportunity…even the opportunity to be a bullet-sponge.

You know — the perfect shitstorm we’ve been wallowing in since 2001?

Oh, and — having evidently not learned a goddam thing — the current president has bent over backwards to accommodate and guarantee the ongoing expansion of corporate and the military power because, besides inevitable relentless fascism, what could possibly go wrong in a country where the military and private corporations are the principle forces determining public policy?

::eyeroll::

I realize that [a] steadfast partisan streak makes it difficult to understand that some issues are more complex than “blue side good, red side bad!”

But you might at least fucking try once in a while.

(the original post can be found at: http://www.queerty.com/breaking-obama-supports-doma-repeal-20110719/)

DOMA and DADT: Twins of Injustice

2011-07-20T01:22:00.007-06:00

(illustration attribution: Kevin Moore @2004 ~ http://incontemptcomics.com/)

...an essay by "Bud" E. Lewis Evans

DOMA and DADT are conjoined like Siamese Twins. Both may survive the legal scalpel of judicial surgery, but one or both might die in the process as well.

If DADT appeal goes forth, that could negatively impact and set a very bad precedent in DOMA if the Supreme Court finds that the Gay and Lesbian community is not entitled to "heightened scrutiny" and 14th Amendment equal protection or even Fifth Amendment due process protections in DADT. In view of those consequences, DOMA should have gone first as the Supreme Court has historically sided with the military on administrative proceedings.

Besides, Justice Kagan already has stated that she will probably recuse herself since DADT was argued in federal court while she was solicitor general and before she joined the Supreme Court. That alone just breaks the "liberal" majority (if Anthony Kennedy joins in) of the court on this one.

By the way, Elena Kagan (for all you Democratic loyalists who think that Democratic federal court appointees are referable to Republicans appointed judges such as Anthony Kennedy who wrote the majority decisions in Lawrence -v- Texas (striking down the sodomy laws) and in Romer -v- Evans (striking down anti-gay Amendment 2 in Colorado) ...just remember what Ellen Kagan stupidly said during her confirmation hearing about DOMA.

Kagan said: "There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage."

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

According to Keen News Service:

http://www.keennewsservice.com/2010/09/14/kagans-recusals-potential-barrier-to-pro-gay-rulings/

"In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, Gill v. Office of Personnel Management, Massachusetts v. Health and Human Services (DOMA), and in Log Cabin Republicans v. U.S., and Witt v. U.S. (DADT). If Kagan recuses herself from any of these cases, the probability for a tie is the best the LGBT community can hope for in any of these cases. Rather than pinning hopes on Justice Anthony Kennedy to serve as a swing vote to victory, pro-gay attorneys will be desperate to persuade Kennedy in order to maintain a status quo.

When there’s a tie in the Supreme Court, the lower court ruling stands but applies only to that federal circuit.

So, if the 9th Circuit agrees with District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that California’s same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional and the Yes on 8 supporters of Proposition 8 appeal to the Supreme Court, the best gay civil rights supporters could hope for — given the current ideological make-up of the court — is to preserve the 9th Circuit ruling for the nine 9th Circuit states.

On the other hand, if the 9th Circuit should disagree with Walker’s ruling, perhaps the worst outcome would likely be that banning same-sex marriage would be considered constitutional in only those nine states."

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

Also during her confirmation hearing, Kagan was asked about the Defense of Marriage Act, regarding state recognition of same-sex marriages entered into in other states. Kagan indicated that she would defend the act (DOMA) if "there was any reasonable basis to do so."

It really doesn't look that great with Kagan on the court now. She could have just said, during her confirmation hearings in Congress, that she could not discuss cases which could possibly reach the Supreme Court - that is what others, including Republican nominees have done as a matter of jurisprudence and court ethics in the past. But no, she had to suck up to the right-wingers -- now she's on the record opposing GLBT equal marriage rights before they have even reached the court.

Wow, nice judicial choice, Obama! But what did you expect from him and his non-confrontational, shortsighted, lack of decision-making skills anyway? He's such a screw-up and a really big disappointment to his progressive base. His signing on to the doomed "Respect for Marriage Act" is a farce; considering how the Bill would've even been a struggle in his first two years, but, today, with the House in Republican control, bringing this "dead-on-arrival" Bill up now is just an insult and an exploitation of the gullibility of the GLBT community. We deserved better, and, what's more, America deserved better from the Democratic Party, the party of Roosevelt and Truman. What a disaster for us all. This at a time when we truly need real leadership; not a vacillating, unreliable, dupliticous village idiot in the White House.

As the old saying goes: "The Republicans fear their base, while the Democrats despise their base."

Obama is the living embodiment of that axiom. More's the pity.

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

About the cartoon caption illustrator, Kevin Moore:

Hope, Change and All That Crap — a new collection of In Contempt comic strips — is available for purchase through Lulu.com. The book collects strips published between August 2007 and January 2009.

And the Clock Just Keeps on a'Tickin'....

2011-07-18T00:49:00.004-06:00

Learn more about

US Debt.

Maggie Gallagher: The Gluttony of Homophobia

2011-07-11T01:09:00.016-06:00

[photo attribution to: http://www.queerty.com/what-will-margaret-srivastav-wear-to-patrick-leahys-historic-doma-hearings-20110707]

"Gluttony" from http://www.deadlysins.com/sins/gluttony.html

*What it is: Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

*Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be force-fed rats, toads, and snakes.

*Associated symbols & such: Gluttony is linked with the pig and the color orange.

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

[photo attribution to: http://www.renwl.org/noms-maggie-gallagher-to-ken-mehlman-we-will-crush-you/7269/

> --- with some "enhancements" of my own added]

Hmmmmm...so, then according to Catholicism, and their Seven Deadly Sins contrivances, "gluttony" is listed as one of the worst sins ever.

Then, by inference, Maggie Gallagher is a first class porcine Satanic sinner. Therefore, all of us god-fearing, present day Sodom and Gomorrahites should shun her. It is our sacred duty as good cafeteria Christians.

To confirm this, I remember when I was a child, and when my mom ran out of Grimm's fairy-tales to scare the bejesus out of me before bedtime, she used to tell me bible stories. I remember the one about Sodom and Gomorrah and how it got accidentally destroyed. She told me that everyone was gay in the two towns, and how they had to adopt crack-babies because no one would do the ol' heterosexual "in and out" anymore.

God, realizing that the world would be vastly over-crowded in a few thousands years or so, and (God being God, you know) wanted to get a head-start on things, so He really liked the idea of at least some of His brood having non-reproductive sex and keeping things in balance. He even sent some male "trainer" angels for them to practice same-sex copulation with because the angels were getting really bored in heaven waiting for cable TV -- which hadn't been invented yet. But when Lot tried to pull a fast one by offering his daughters to the Sodom and Gomorrah Branch of the Log Cabin Republicans (one of the original lost tribes of Israel) for the men to White Party with instead of those devilishly handsome angels when they arrived -- well, the men would have none of it. Consequently, God got as mad as a parish priest without an altar-boy at Lot's betrayal and tried to destroyed Lot with a fire-bolt, but God missed and hit the twin cities instead.

Well, God was really pissed off by then and got his revenge by turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. God felt bad about it later and wanted to turn Lot into a Margarita (so that Lot and his wife could be together again), but there was this demon cow, named Maggus Gallagherus, who came along and, when no one was looking, licked the salt block all up until it disappeared. Lot became so distraught that he got drunk later and had sex with his two daughters (true, look it up) so that he could continue his family's line.

The rumors of Lot's incest with his daughters spread eventually, so Lot moved his daughter-wives and his grandchildren-kids to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where he is now a disgraced "frothy mix" former United States Senator running for Grand Wizard of the United Confederate States of Amerika along with Rick "anti-christ" Perry and Michele "crazy eyes" Bachman. Together they have created the newly formed "Children of the Corn Party".

But what happened to Maggus Gallergerus, the sloth demon, you may ask? Well, she converted to Hinduism and was reincarnated as a Catholic in 20th century America. She now fights Sodom and Gommorahites in the US in the name of her former demon self since God will no longer feed her appetite by turning people into salt for her to lick. This salt deficiency in her diet caused her to form the organisation called NOM (Nasty Old Monsters) where she continues to scare little children and homosexuals, as well as the other pure and innocent offspring of God.

The moral of the story is, as my mother told me: "Steer clear of homophobic fat women, because they may have an agenda...or maybe they just don't feel pretty and want attention. Either way, if they attack you, throw some salt on the ground and run like hell."

...Gosh, I sure do miss those lovely old stories my mom told me when I was growing up as a kid. Those were good times. But I still find it hard to believe how anyone cannot trust in the unerring truth of the Bible through honest to goodness true stories like these in the Holy Book.

You got to believe. Exactly what else is there to have faith in -- Science or something? As surely as you can see Russia while standing on the back porch of my house in Kansas, you got to believe.

...You betcha.

We Liberal Independents Need a Progressive Version of the Tea Party

2011-06-30T06:32:00.009-06:00

Without the fear of consequences from their constituents most politicians, like water, will take the path of least resistance. You get what you demand -- if you ask for little, that's what you'll get. If there is a negative price to be paid at the ballot box from any pro-active constituent group, then, believe me, that group will be appeased before an election.

The tide of history is on our side with more and more people joining in the movement towards a more perfect union. If we excuse our so-called leaders for not supporting us openly, then why should anyone else feel motivated to do the right thing? Should we expect more commitment to our cause from our co-workers and neighbors and from those who do not know us than we do from those we elect to public office to represent us? Changing hearts and minds is one thing, but to insist that those leaders, which we have elevated to positions of political power, to follow suit and, dare I say, lead on issues of historical significance -- is that really too much to expect?

Obama is a political weather vane without a moral center. He is incapable of leadership. More's the pity, really. He's a competent orator; too bad his carefully crafted, White House staff generated, words are just pandering poetic prose calculated to created a media image with no more lasting substance than the faint fading glow of a teleprompter.

And, no, claiming the "other guy" would be worst is no longer a good enough reason for giving this guy a free pass. The battered housewife syndrome kind of relationship which some in the GLBT community have had (and still have) with the Democratic Party is getting really tiresome. Enablers do not deserve pity nor any semblance of respect.

Third parties and Independents can, and do, win state and local elections, such as former Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker. Some have even won federal elections: witness Sen. Bernie Sanders of VT (a proud independent socialist for god sake) and Sen. Joe Lieberman. What about the Tea Party (an independent extremist right-wing subset of Republicans) who, although small in numbers, basically controls the House of Representatives by setting the agenda? Anything is possible, if you are motivated enough and have enough people to just say -- let's do it.

Mark Halperin calls Obama a Dick on Morning Joe -- June 30, 2011

2011-06-30T05:24:00.009-06:00

...Ok, maybe he is. But, poor Mary Landrieu...was that really necessary?

Read on the link below about how ol' Marky "Snark" Halperin photo-shopped a picture of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu with semen in her hair simulating a scene involving Cameron Diaz from "There's Something About Mary". ...Yep, a real class act.

Click on link below:
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/mark-halperins-photopshop-flop-senato

WE WIN!!!! Marriage Equality Comes to One of the Biggest States in the USA

2011-06-28T22:16:00.004-06:00

Full Equality is Born and Stands as a Beacon of Hope For Tens of Millions in the GLBT Community in Yet Another Free State in the USA. Congratulations New York For Embodying Those True American Principles of Liberty and Justice for All!

Grow a Spine Obama and Show Just a Little Bit of the Courage That Truman Did in 1948

2011-06-28T22:04:00.004-06:00

Read a little bit of history from texts which I cobbled together below, then ask yourself how Harry Truman found the courage to desegregate the US Military, during his election year, when vast numbers of white voters were against it? Where is Obama’s leadership regarding the last group of citizens in America, the GLBT community, to suffer government mandated discrimination? Why wont he even come out and give tacit support to marriage equality when the majority of Americans already do so?

See how a real President led a nation with courage and commitment towards what was the correct moral choice regarding equality and who did not just follow his own distorted internal prognostications and politically paralyzing fears like Obama.

————————-

“Tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman, and were a major factor in his decision to issue Executive Order 9981, in July 1948, to back civil rights initiatives and require equal opportunity in the armed forces.

At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Truman attempted to calm turbulent domestic political waters by placing a tepid civil rights plank in the party platform; the aim was to assuage the internal conflicts between the northern and southern wings of his party. Events overtook the president’s efforts at compromise, however. A sharp address given by Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis — as well as the local political interests of a number of urban bosses — convinced the Convention to adopt a stronger civil rights plank, which Truman approved wholeheartedly. All of Alabama’s delegates, and a portion of Mississippi’s, walked out of the convention in protest. Unfazed, Truman delivered an aggressive acceptance speech attacking the 80th Congress and promising to win the election and “make these Republicans like it.”

Within two weeks, Truman issued Executive Order 9981, racially integrating the U.S. Armed Services. Truman took considerable political risk in backing civil rights, and many seasoned Democrats were concerned that the loss of Dixiecrat support might destroy the Democratic Party. The fear seemed well justified — Strom Thurmond declared his candidacy for the presidency and led a full-scale revolt of Southern “states’ rights” proponents. This revolt on the right was matched by a revolt on the left, led by former Vice President Henry A. Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket. Immediately after its first post-FDR convention, the Democratic Party found itself disintegrating. Victory in November seemed a remote possibility indeed, with the party not simply split but divided three ways.

Most civilians and military personnel opposed racial integration. One month before President Truman’s Executive Order, a Gallup poll showed that 63% of American adults endorsed the separation of Blacks and Whites in the military; only 26% supported integration. A 1949 survey of white Army personnel revealed that 32% completely opposed racial integration in any form, and 61% opposed integration if it meant that Whites and Blacks would share sleeping quarters and mess halls. However, 68% of white soldiers were willing to have Blacks and Whites work together, provided they didn’t share barracks or mess facilities.

As the 1993 RAND report noted:

“Many white Americans (especially Southerners) responded with visceral revulsion to the idea of close physical contact with blacks. Many also perceived racial integration as a profound affront to their sense of social order. Blacks, for their part, often harbored deep mistrust of whites and great sensitivity to any language or actions that might be construed as racial discrimination” (National Defense Research Institute, 1993, p. 160).

Truman went on to win his second term (1949–1953) as President after having assumed the office, after the death of Roosevelt, from 1945 to 1948.”

Primary Research source… http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/.....story.html

—————————————-

MY TAKE ON IT:

It boggles the mind to imagine this current invertebrate in the White House, with obvious commitment issues, being willing to take a stand on any issue without soiling his underpants. Yet, he comes to New York during one of the most historic events in our movement and has the gall to ask both for handouts and for the GLBT community’s full political support, while he steadfastly refuses to openly support our community in return. He must really think that we are nothing but a bunch of saps and rubes who just fell off a turnip truck.

And he’s probably right because we let him take us for granted without demanding anything in return and by not threatening consequences like any other self-respecting constituent group would if they were offered anything less than full representation and honest advocacy for their issues.

All of this just begs the question: How many times do the Democrats have to lose before they start to fear their voter base as much as the Republicans do? It’s all about demanding accountability; nothing more.

My Fine Art Posters

2011-06-21T03:36:00.003-06:00

* Click HERE to go to my Fine Arts Print Gallery...

YES, YOU CAN MAKE IT BETTER PRESIDENT OBAMA ~ by "Bud" E. Lewis Evans

2011-06-21T00:01:00.000-06:00

Yes, things will "get better" when we actually have people (especially a president) in a leadership position with a genuine soul, coupled with a heart and a brain, to guide this Byzantine disaster of nation. Political cowardice and partisan paranoia has trumped real leadership in America. Today, we have nothing but inflatable candidates made large than life by mass media hype and then anchored down, like Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloons, by corporate interests and Political Party Machine manipulations.

The last president we had with a true sense of honor was Harry Truman who went over Pentagon heads, and his own party, as well as being contrary to the will of the vast majority of the general public when he desegregated the US Military. Lyndon Johnson could have been a great leader (as big as Roosevelt) if it had not been for his mistakes in Vietnam -- although he did give us medicare and medicaid, as well as the student grant and college loan program. Today, all we have are shallow duplicitous personifications of political ads in suits steering the country into the gutter of history and towards the inevitable fate of civilizations past their glory.

Get ready to learn to speak Chinese or Hindi if you want a job. In twenty years our major cities may quite possibly look like what old Calcutta, India did in the 1960s replete with beggars, and the only jobs available to US citizens will be pulling rigshaws for foreign tourists. Oh, but we will probably still have some sort of minority left to kick around and blame for our own premeditated decline.

I fear we have become just as deluded as the main character in Voltaire's book, "Candide", who kept insisting that "It is still the best of all possible worlds" even as one disaster after another befell him.

But, sometimes simply saying something is so just isn't enough, especially when it ignores what actually needs to be changed. Obama had a chance to do that, but he favors the status quo, and the GLBT community is a threat to that recalcitrant status quo which only has room to accommodate insecure conformists who so willingly bow down to fluctuating societal norms and entrenched corporate power hierarchies.

To people like Obama, who just want to fit in, we are an annoying reminder of his own minority status and a threat to his membership in the exclusive club he once thought he might be denied admission to. We are a bridge too far. A place he is not willing to go. And this is especially so if that advocacy for us should remind others in the White, heterosexual power structure that Obama is not actually one of them; not one of the "good old boys" either. I believe his capitulating to the military on stripping anti-discrimination provisions out the House DADT repeal bill is a prime example of that.

But this not a racial phenomena, there are members of the LGBT community who have also been known to sell out even their own kind in order to be granted access to power. GoProud and HRC immediately comes to mind.

So, Mr. President, don't simply tell all of our GLBT children at risk that "it only gets better"; rather, give them a reason to believe that claim by actually making it better. How could you do any less and still honor the high office you hold? I know that hackneyed phrase, "actions speak louder than words", has been bandied about a lot lately questioning your real commitment to civil rights, but sometimes actually doing something affirmative, instead of just talking about, may quite possibly have the side benefit of restoring people's faith in you.

Without a realization of results, your much vaulted "Audacity of Hope" message is nothing more than meaningless rhetoric. You owe more than that to the children of America, and especially to the only segment of children in America to have the ugly specter of government sanctioned discrimination lying in wait for them, like a bully after school, as they grow into adulthood.

President Johnson once said that his pushing the 1964 Civil Rights Act through Congress would doom the Democratic Party forever in the South, but he said that it was the right thing to do. Can you make that kind of commitment to our Civil Rights as well? GLBT children and adults in America need you to say, "yes I can" and then actually honor your commitments. We all chanted "yes we can" to get you elected, now it is your turn.

If there is no affirmative support from you for the unequivocal equal human rights for all American citizens, then there should only be a vote of no confidence for you. If you don't get the message; then you don't deserve to be in the high office you hold. No other issue is more important than human rights. That is what this country fought a revolutionary war over. That takes precedence over all other considerations. Without equality, nothing else matters. Nothing.

As an after thought -- I must say to those who will settle for next to nothing, because the alternative for them is to hard for them to bear -- remember, when you vote for the lesser of two evils, you still end up with evil. I'm not ready to sell my soul for that; if you are, then you don't deserve anybody's respect. At the risk of mixing metaphors, I must point out that it's the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but if you put a sock in your own mouth no one will ever hear you. That doesn't make you safe, it just makes you irrelevant.

@ "Bud" E. Lewis Evans, 2011

Elizabeth Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) -- Dies at Age 79

2011-03-23T15:24:00.005-06:00

~ Elizabeth Taylor circa 1953 ~

“I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame.”–Elizabeth Taylor (2/27/32-3/24/11)

(for a great article on her life and her selfless contribution to the fight against AIDS, please click on this link at 365gay.com --http://www.365gay.com/news/elizabeth-taylor-screen-legend-pioneering-aids-activist-dies/ )

Breaking "Break-in" News -- Hollywood "B" list drug addict "actress" Linsay Lohan's petty theft more important than Historical White House Decision

2011-02-26T16:27:00.003-07:00

The Daily Show - There's Something About Marry
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Attorney General says DOMA is unconstitutional

2011-02-24T01:41:00.001-07:00

...although, Obama pledges to still enforce unconstitutional DOMA in spite of his Oath of Office to uphold the Constitution.

Obama: Commander-in-Chief-Hypocrite

2011-01-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

"Obama Warren"
Political Cartoon contribution/BuffyTheFundieSlayer

“The President has spoken out in opposition to Proposition 8 because it is divisive and discriminatory. He will continue to promote equality for LGBT Americans,” the White House said Wednesday night after the ruling and tried to clarify its position the following day. “The president does oppose same-sex marriage, but he supports equality for gay and lesbian couples..." Aug. 2010

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/tag/same-sex-marriage/

“I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages,” Illinois State Sen. Obama said in an answer to a 1996 "Outlines" newspaper question on marriage -- before he became a lying, backstabbing, spineless weasel as President.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/13/obama-once-supported-same_n_157656.html

Anaglyphic Photography Made Easy ...(put on your red/cyan 3d viewing glasses and click on book to see sample pages)

2011-01-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

Anaglyph Photography Made Easy by E. Lewis Evans | Make Your Own Book

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

This book contains several examples of anaglyph photography created on a home computer using a series of two photographs for each subject. I took these using an ordinary Cyber-shot Sony digital camera without any special 3D lens attachments. I employed the “cha-cha” (left/right shifting) method of creating 3D anaglyph photos in order to demonstrate that anybody can make beautiful 3D anaglyph photography without expensive equipment.

Book Contents: 80 pages total - most in full color.

(click on the book icon above to see sample pages which were selected for your viewing -- make sure you have on your Red/Cyan 3D Anaglyph Glasses in order to experience the 3D effect of the photos)

Please Note: the anaglyph photos will be in much higher resolution and 3D clarity, on the high quality matte finish paper which I selected, regarding the book for publication.

Thanks for stopping by and, while you're here, check out my other book listed.

Beneath the See: A Collection of Poems, Art Work, Short Stories, Essays and Musings (click on book to view sample pages)

2011-01-13T02:46:00.000-07:00

Beneath the See by E. Lewis Evans | Make Your Own Book

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

"Beneath the See: A Journey Within"

[A Collection of Poems, Art Work, Short Stories, Essays and Musings by E. Lewis Evans]

Author, Poet, and Artist E. Lewis Evans has developed a distinctive subliminal voice which speaks to us all about the precarious balance of sensuality and spirituality. He draws expansively from his own exceptional verbal and pictorial repertoire, while skillfully incorporating his mastery of imagery with both the written word and through his unique abilities as a Figurative Expressionist Artist.

(200 pages with illustrations)

~ Click on Preview Book above in order to browse fifty-nine sample pages ~

In spite of Obama's Obstructionism -- Reid and Pelosi Finally Repeal DADT

2010-12-18T18:43:00.002-07:00

After almost two years of Obama insisting that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid put off repeal of DADT, and with very little involvement from the White House, Gay and Lesbian military personnel will eventually be able to serve openly to fight to the death for the freedoms they are still denied; which every other American takes so casually for granted.

Originally, the House bill had a non-discrimination clause attached to the legislation which would protect Gay and Lesbian military personnel from discrimination in the military or, at least, give them a legal tool in order to seek to remedy blatant acts of discrimination based on one's real or perceived sexual orientation in military such as being passed over for promotion and other forms of unequal treatment related to sexual orientation discrimination. Obama, at the urging of the Pentagon, demanded that the non-discrimination clause be removed from the final version of DADT. Apparently, Obama isn't ready for patriotic Gay and Lesbian Americans to be treated as equals and their rights of citizenship fully protected just yet.

Still, some Obama sycophants wonders why the Democratic Party's progressive base is repulsed by this duplicitous fraud in the White House. And, naturally, Obama has taken full credit for this stripped down and gutted repeal of DADT which will no doubt be "slow walked" into existence with plenty of inequities still left standing in place because of Obama's insistence that the non-discrimination clause be removed from the bill. This insult, as well as Barry's Department of inJustice via AG Holder's hypocritical and denigrating defense of DOMA in the federal courts had better be resolved if Obama has any hope whatsoever to see a second term as POTUS.

Obama: Just Another in a Long Line of Shameful Homophobic Bigots Besmirching the White House

2010-11-04T05:56:00.006-06:00

Johnny Mathis Sings "Misty" - The Best Singer of Romantic Ballads Ever

2010-11-02T01:52:00.002-06:00

it's not for me to say- johnny mathis

2010-11-02T01:08:00.001-06:00

President Barack O'Bush Has No Sense of Decency or Shame Whatsoever

2010-11-01T07:14:00.003-06:00

President Barack O'Bush

(single term in office: 2008 - 2012)

Please read at the link below how Obama's head of Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, the highest-ranking out gay official in this administration was required last year to ignore a federal court order to allow GLBT federal employees to buy health insurance from the federal government for their partners.

President Barack O'Bush has no sense of decency or shame whatsoever.

SOURCE: http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/14300/wh-defies-court-order-top-openly-gay-officials-dept-seeks-to-bar-partner-health-benefits

Photo Credit:

http://www.newworldorderwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bush-obama.jpg

Bully Harasses Gay Teen: WWYD?

2010-10-30T08:37:00.001-06:00

Scumbag Sacha Baron Cohen Tries to Incite a Riot Between Prop 8 Protesters

2010-10-27T00:30:00.010-06:00

For all of you who may have thought that Sasha "Boring" Cohen's repulsive stereotyping of Gay men was all for "laughs" (while he took home some $139 million dollars in box office receipts by exploiting and degrading the GLBT community) ...well, check the video out below and ask yourself if you still think this troll is a comedic genius. If you do, then you may find yourself in the same company as the very few African Americans who found White men, in Black-face, doing Minstrel Shows a laugh riot singing "Mammy" for White bigots in 1920s Vaudeville. ~ Comment by Rainfish2000 .

Attribution and link to story courtesy, "Queerty" (click below for link):

http://www.queerty.com/sacha-baron-cohen-sued-by-gay-camera-man-for-turning-prop-8-rally-into-violent-joke-20101027/

Steve Colbert Sticks It to Moronic Homophobe Politicians Sean Beilat (MA) and Ken Buck (CO)

2010-10-26T08:43:00.002-06:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Indecision 2010 - Revenge of the Fallen - Sean Bielat & Ken Buck<a>

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

2010 Election

March to Keep Fear Alive

Lt. Dan Choi Puts a Sex-Obsessed Old Homophobic Skank in Her Place

2010-10-21T23:58:00.002-06:00

Tweets Can Be Posted From Here

2010-10-21T03:16:00.002-06:00

The Cub and Boy Scouts of the Fourth Reich (aka - The un-United States of America)...

2010-10-18T06:27:00.002-06:00

an essay by E. L. Evans

The Boy Scouts of America (and Cub Scouts) -- sounds innocent enough doesn't it? But ever since extremist American Talibanesque despots among "christian" fundamentalists in the US assumed absolute theocratic control over the Boy & Cub Scouts of America, the organization has become nothing more than just another child-exploiting political tool for the Radical Right.

The BSA/CSA are now so poisonously polarized that it should be forced to register as a political lobby group in Washington D.C. . And the official capital hill response, encouraged by legions of Republican loons, does nothing but help further the politicalization of religion and foment the religiosity of social organizations. The GOP finds this a useful fig leaf behind which to aggravate petty group prejudices, while completely perverting what was formerly a worthwhile and inclusive institution for young adults. But, sad to say, even members of my own Democratic Party in Congress, not long ago, voted overwhelming for a resolution which lauded the virtues of an organization that is now the embodiment of contemporary bigotry.

When I was a boy, forty-some years ago, I remembered how the CSA/BSA provided a great opportunity for children, of all backgrounds and races, to get together in a non-judgmental climate with the sole purpose of just fostering friendship, cooperation and camaraderie. And even though many kids lived in segregated neighborhoods in the 60's, like where I grew up, the CSA/BSA provided a welcoming conduit for diversity that was unprecedented for the time. Their involvement in after-school programs was simply to bring kids together with the goal of teaching them how to work and play as a group in a respectful color-blind and religion-blind manner, with an eye only on developing some cool outdoor skills; having fun together, and learning how to be responsible members of the community.

But in recent years the leadership has demonstrated that they have more in common with the Ku Klux Klan than with the former Cub and Boy Scouts of America. The CSA/BSA as organizations, I might add, used to be apolitical and progressive on social issues. Ironically, the Girls Scouts of America does not have similar bans on fellow Gays and Lesbians, or Atheist and Agnostic American families who wish for their children, as well as themselves as parents, to participate in the GSA youth organization.

Director Steven Spielberg, to his credit, withdrew his sponsorship, along with a huge financial donation, from the BSA. Spielberg claimed that, at one time, the BSA was very important influence in his adolescent development, but now it has evolved into something quite different. Point-in-fact, several years ago, in a New Jersey case, the US Supreme Court ruled that the BSA, being a private organization (like the KKK), could indeed discriminate in its membership requirements. In other words, now it is perfectly legal to compel BSA kids and adult members to swear an official oath to heterosexual-only coitus and then require that they also profess an official organizationally mandated belief in a High Sky Father -- that is, if they want to be Scouts.

Of course, the BSA is more subtle than that, using such ambiguous phraseology as: "(I pledge to be) ...morally "straight". Of course, "straight", the operative word here, was NOT used as a colloquialism to denote a heterosexual at the time the oath was written. But then the BSA officials now interpret "morally straight" as some kind of semantically twisted justification for rejecting at least ten per cent of the human race.

And then there is the phrase "duty to god", which appears on the second line of the oath which the oath-taker mechanically delivers in rote allegiances to, for example, a "god" and country, etc.. The type of "god" is not identified by his/her/its name or religious affiliation in the oath. It could be the Hindu Elephant-headed, multi-armed god, Ganesha, which is perfectly legitimate of course, or the Egyptian cat goddess, Bast - to whom I sometimes pray after I see an occasional mouse in my home. But to be fair to the Boy Scouts of America, adherents of the church of Satan should also feel welcomed with open arms as well as any other god-cult, because, as the BSA has proudly and officially proclaimed, they do not discriminate against anyone who, at the very least, believes in some kind of "Deity".

So, there you have it, when the BSA is not busy bashing gays, they are purging their membership of Atheists for rejecting the supernatural and for clinging to their very unpopular atheistic rational ways. Hell, the BSA even kicks out harmless little Agnostics whose only "sin" is that they still hold out hope that there might be a god, but they're just not quite ready to commit yet and run out to buy a pair of Sunday shoes.

So, take heart, if you or a member of your family are devoted followers of the Indian thug-gee death cult of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, you just might be Cub Scout, Boy Scout or Republican material.

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

And you can even check for yourself to verify your eligibility at the official BSA web site: http://www.bsalegal.org/morally-straight-cases-225.asp

● Employment:

"With respect to positions limited to professional Scouters or, because of their close relationship to the mission of Scouting, positions limited to registered members of the Boy Scouts of America, acceptance of the Declaration of Religious Principle, the Scout Oath, and the Scout Law is required. Accordingly, in the exercise of its constitutional right to bring the values of Scouting to youth members, Boy Scouts of America will not employ atheists, agnostics, known or avowed homosexuals, or others as professional Scouters or in other capacities in which such employment would tend to interfere with its mission of reinforcing the values of the Scout Oath and the Scout Law in young people."

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

By the way, I am perplexed -- you know, me being an "avowed homosexual" and all that -- why can't I recall what oath I took at my "Gay" initiation and what exactly were the words to my vows? Although, I think I can still remember our secret hand-shake, and I believe someone bought me dinner afterwards so we could discus how we were going to take over America and force everybody to buy Prada shoes. But the rest is kind of foggy.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is this -- "who cares?".

I don't have a problem with people exercising their "associative freedoms", including the CSA/BSA and their deluded cult followers. Let them have their little Mickey Mouse Club. I personally would not want Fred Phelps or Pat Robertson to join in my parade - unless they took that aforementioned secret "vow" to serve our homosexual deity -- I think His name is Bruce.

But a line in the sand must be drawn when the CSA/BSA's cabal proceeds to impose their officially sanctioned cult status on public school children during class time, as well as demanding freebees at tax-payers' expense (including panhandling from Gay, Atheist, Agnostic tax-payers, I might add). Yes, freeloading and all the while posing as some ersatz public non-profit charitable organization that is selfless at its core and without prejudice; working for the community's welfare and the greater good of all. Yep, that makes the "BS" in Boy Scouts take on a quite different connotation..

I figure that if you, the CSA/BSA, have sent out personally engraved invitations for your "private" party to just "your" personal friends, then don't expect all of us who weren't invited to pick up the bill. Gay and Atheist and Agnostic families should not have to pay others to discriminate against them; they should not be compelled to reward bigotry by subsidizing a "private" (which the BSA won the legal right to be called), closed-membership, ideologically-polarized club with public funds derived from an entire community's compulsory tax contribution to local, state and federal government agencies. If they want to remain a private, closed membership club then it is simple -- let them find private sources to sponge-off from in order to promote their un-democratic, unChristian, and immoral ideals of intolerance and group-hate.

Fortunately, when many enlightened communities saw that the BSA legally fought for and won the right to conduct themselves, not as a public youth organization, but as a private religious/socio/political cult, then quite a number of large municipalities withdrew public tax-funded support for the BSA. Which is a good thing and a courageously principled stand to take. Who wants to see their hard-earned dollars go an organization which promotes hate and intolerance for any group by officially banning them? What kind of irresponsible and asocial role-models do they provide for our children by advocating prejudice and discrimination as an accepted part of citizenry?

So, if the CSA/BSA want to act like some "exclusive" Country Club throwback from the 1950's -- which, in that era, many did not admit Jews or Blacks because they too were not the "right" kind of people -- then let them. But, it must be made very clear, the CSA/BSA should not expect public dollars to subsidized their own version of a segregated private club that won`t admit gay teenagers and gay scout leaders, or those other families who refuse to profess a belief in the supernatural. Seems reasonable doesn't it?

Well, regrettably, in the real world, what does reason have anything even remotely to do with Right Wing politics, religion or bigotry? Nothing, of course, is the answer. But just remember that if we forget to stay vigilant and if we abandon our constitutional responsibilities as citizens by neglecting to separate politics and religion from one another, then the inevitable result will be unending civil strife; perpetual bigotry, and an indelible stain in history left upon our country.

Like racism, socio//political expressions of homophobia are no less shameful and harmful to a significant segment of our society. Yet who today would advocate changing our Constitution to promote racism or lend public support to any organization, especially to a youth club, which promotes racism? Perhaps, if the Right Wing keeps it's strangle-hold on the conscience of America, that might be next. In the meanwhile, if the "Generic Deity-worshipping", "Heterosexuals-only" Boy Scouts "of just a Demographically Approved portion" of America wants to go it alone, then, as I said before, let them. Actually, they've become nothing more than just the Republican/Teabagger Party's own pet version of The Third Reich's Hitler Youth Corp anyway -- and look at the pontiff that created. In the near future, who knows, perhaps proof of "pure" Aryan ancestry might be the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts of America's next qualifier for membership.

It's so sad that both the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of America have devolved into child-exploiting and hate-indoctrinating versions of a modern American Klan. Such a pity.

(c) Bud Evans, 2010

Is Any Religion Worth Saving?

2010-10-17T08:21:00.005-06:00

(illustration attribution to http://yihongs-research.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html)

Essay by "Bud" E. Lewis Evans

The Christian religion will be a dying religion and eventually consigned to the dust bin of other primitive myth-based beliefs by the middle of this century, I predict. Unless it begins to evolve into more social relevancy, most remnants of the Christian religion will only survive to serve the ends of despots and political manipulators -- much of which has already come to pass.

I'm sorry but ask yourself this: if humans were to some day find a cure for death, would we even be having this discussion. Most religions are rooted in the fear of dying: loss of self -- nothing more. And, unlike Buddhism, Abrahamic religions don't really offer anything beyond the promise of the preservation of the self in its present form of consciousness. No real re-birth or evolution beyond the material sense of self -- just a continuation of it in some "spiritual realm". How sad and how limiting.

Too many "religious types" are like frightened children at bedtime, so afraid when the lights go off. They cling to the past and to the extinguished light of yesterday which only drags them down further into darkness. But the dawn will come sooner, if only you would just stop thinking so much about it. It's time to move on; make life better in the "here-and-now" so that our children will have a better life to look forward to in this world after we are gone.

And that means our GLBT children as well. All of us, and especially those of you in the "christian" community, have a lot to make up for with them. It's time to get started. Reject all forms of exclusion, no matter what you may personally feel about a particular group. As long as no demonstrable harm is being done to another, then you must allow each of us to live our own lives as we see fit. I am no longer a Christian (although I was raised as a German Lutheran), still I believe that your Jesus (perhaps not the present cultification of him), but, perhaps, the true Messiah would have done that.

The real test of your humanity towards your fellow man or woman is not how well you get along with those who are like you, but how well you receive those who are not. I have no doubt that ol' J.C. would agree with me on that one. Even Buddha, it is claimed, once said: "Be a lamp unto yourself." But that doesn't preclude lighting at least part of the way for others you meet along the road -- as long as you don't force them to follow you on your trail when they may have their own journeys to make along different footpaths.

Still, I am hopeful. I think we can all find commonality, if we only try a little harder to seek it with one another. I think each one of us has been given a single piece of a cosmic jigsaw puzzle - unique unto itself. I believe that the mystery of our existence will never be completely unraveled until we each come together, along different paths if need be, and arrive at a common destination to help each other put the pieces back together again. Somehow, by then, I don't think that we'll be surprised at what we'll find. We may find that, when the puzzle is complete, that it is just a giant looking glass with one image looking back.

Maybe that is what faith is. I can't prove it. I think that it could be true. Or not. But, perhaps, it might be all different tomorrow.

In conclusion, just remember:

"Veritas Vos Liberabit" (The Truth Shall Set You Free) but... "De omnibus dubitandum" (Everything should be questioned)

Taiwanese Animated "News" Coverage of Republican Teabagger NY Gubernatorial Candidate Carl Paladino

2010-10-16T03:13:00.004-06:00

Funny as hell Taiwanese animated "news" coverage of Republican Teabagger NY Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino. You might have to hit the pause button once in while to slow it down in order to read the captions.

Source: Queerty --- http://www.queerty.com/carl-paladinos-gay-pride-parade-fantasies-brought-to-cinematic-life-20101015/

Truth Will Eventually Win Out Over Repugnant unChrist-like Pseudo-Christian Rightwing Haters

2010-10-05T08:11:00.007-06:00

“Gay people who want to marry have no desire to redefine marriage in any way. When women got the vote, they did not redefine voting. When African Americans got the right to sit at a lunch counter along side white people, they did not redefine eating out. They were simply invited to the table and that is all we want to do. We have no desire to change marriage. We want to be entitled not only to the same privileges but the same responsibilities as straight people.” ~ Cynthia Nixon (New Yorker Festival 2010)

To Read more: Click on Heading Title Highlighted Above

Obama: Disgraceful Homophobe and the New Village Idiot in the White House

2010-10-05T05:42:00.010-06:00

An Essay by Bud Evans...

Oh, yes, we have such great choices. On the one hand you have the Republicans who gleefully push the GLBT community into the ditch; while on the other hand, you have the Democratic Politicians who ask the GLBT Community to throw them our votes and wallets first, and then they casually walk by and leave us to flounder in that same ditch. Yep, great choices all right!

How about let's all join together with our truly progressive friends in the straight community; environmental movement; women's reproductive freedom coalitions; in the labor unions (what's left of them, that is), etc., and then unite behind a viable 3rd party and/or Independent candidates.

If you don't think that could work, just remember a single non-affiliate party candidate by the name of Joe Lieberman practically ran the U.S. Senate in 2009. So let's put a few of our own "independents" into both Houses of Congress and break the stranglehold of the two party system which is holding back the progressive movement in America. It time for a "Change You Can Believe In"…. a real one, that is.

The Democratic Party has become a wholly untrustworthy ally to the progressives in the USA. The party consist mainly of little more than cheap whores for Corporate America with their "greed is God" mob of robber barons running the show (with Obama and Reid) behind closed doors toadying to the Wall Street crowd. Just look how Obama sold out important liberal allies in his own party in order to kill a bill that would have made cheaper prescriptions drugs available to cash-strapped Americans.

Oh, but the Dems say that their hands are tied on so many issues. Oddly enough though, the Democrats in the Senate seemed to have forgotten that they have the power to use Reconciliation (which only requires 51 votes) to bypass a Republican filibuster. They could have used it to give access to health care to every American citizen by reducing the age of eligibility for Medicare and, also, by allowing people to buy into Medicare via a monthly premium; thereby by-passing the carnivorous private heath insurance extortionists altogether.

This is essentially the same system they have in Canada, and it works. Just like it does in most civilized nations in the Western World — contrary to the lying propaganda put out by the Health Insurance Profiteers and Extortionists.

Expanding Medicare for All would not set up a new government agency, so it would not have to go before the entire Senate for an open-ended (filibuster inducing) debate. The only downside is that the Bill would have to go back to the Congress for renewal after several years. But, by that time, it would have been firmly entrenched into our system of government and the Republicans would not dare touch it — just as Social Security has become the third rail of politics that neither party wants to muck around with very much, except around the edges.

The Republicans have rarely had 60 votes in the Senate and they have used Reconciliation many, many times to avoid a filibuster by the then minority Democrats. Why didn't Obama and Reid show any courage and use this as the Republicans have many times (including the biggest tax break in American history for the upper income supporters of the Republicans Party during Bush's first term)?

No, the Democrats were too disorganized, too timid, and too inept to use the overwhelming power, bestowed upon them through an unassailable people's mandate, which was handed to them in November 2008. Now, they don't deserve to keep it.

Vote Third Party. We desperately need a coalition government in order to be truly representative of all the people in America — including the GLBT community; the unemployed; the under-employed; victims of a ruined economy; a crumbling national education infrastructure; as well as a dispirited and war-weary people.

It truly is time for a real change in Washington, and not just more empty speeches espousing progressive ideals regurgitated from warmed-over campaign-driven empty rhetoric and self-serving platitudes which has, unfortunately, only coalesced into a new clueless village idiot to disgrace the Oval Office once more.

The So-Called "Original Intent" Conservative Supreme Court Justices are Full of BS if They Think the US Constitution Wasn't Meant to Evolve

2010-10-04T03:08:00.003-06:00

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

– Thomas Jefferson

US Army "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Instructional Comic On Gays In Military

2010-07-21T03:34:00.000-06:00

How Little Things Have Changed in Over Sixty Years -- The Pentagon's Shameful Policy of DADT: This Sad Joke That is America

2010-07-21T03:26:00.007-06:00

Final Race Wonk Room

Jon Steward's Satire on DADT

2010-02-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

A Few Gay Men & Women

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Health Care Crisis

Thousands Dying Because Haitian Slaves 'Swore a Pact with the Devil' for Their Freedom

2010-01-14T03:02:00.006-07:00

Galactically vile Christian cleric Pat Robertson told his CBN viewers today that Haitians are "cursed" because their ancestors "swore a pact with the devil" to liberate themselves from the French in 1804. "True story."

What else would he say? Robertson can't let human suffering pass without finding a way to insinuate that God did it deliberately because he hates gay people, black people, Catholics, or whatever other poor dying sap he can find to cruelly mock and use to his own political and fundraising advantage.

[for the rest of the story go to "Gawker" by clicking on the link below]

http://gawker.com/5447408/thousands-dying-because-haitian-slaves-swore-a-pact-with-the-devil-for-their-freedom?skyline=true&s=x

Prop 8 -- Not Constitutional

2010-01-13T07:19:00.005-07:00

Prop 8 is Simply Unconstitutional

by Lisa Bloom, (Special to CNN)
January 12, 2010 2:49 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- A pop star could have a quickie Vegas wedding tomorrow, to a man she meets tonight, if she so chooses. Scott Peterson, convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife and on death row, has an inalienable right to a prison wedding with a female pen pal if the mood strikes him.

Indiana grandmother Linda Wolfe holds the Guinness World Records title for most marriages: 23. One lasted just 36 hours. She's on the lookout for No. 24, and when she finds him, no law can stop her from marrying him.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held unanimously that "the freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men. Marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man."

So basic, so important, so fundamental, in constitutional parlance, that no state can interfere with even the most reckless heterosexual nuptials.

Yet in most states, my friends Wilbert and Carlos, "free men" together 16 years and lovingly raising a son, are shut out of the 1,100 federal and hundreds of state legal benefits that come with marriage. These include the right to visit a spouse in a hospital and make medical decisions; employer sick and bereavement leave; inheritance rights; the right to give unlimited gifts to a spouse without gift tax; disability, pension, and Social Security benefits; the right to bring a wrongful death case; the right to refuse to testify against a spouse; or the right to prevent the deportation of a foreign-born partner by marriage, among others.

Perhaps most poignant, and often lost in this debate, are children in same-sex families: kids like my friends' son Dorian, growing up with the sting of knowing that his parents are second-class citizens in their own country.

......Click below to continue reading the article.

[attribution to CNN.com -- click HERE for the rest of this extremely well-written essay]

H.R. 3017, Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009: Rep. Frank's Testimony

2009-11-16T23:35:00.001-07:00

Discrimination is Immoral and UnAmerican

Our Greatest Strength is Also Our Greatest Weakness

2009-11-04T01:16:00.006-07:00

Why should the birthright of equality for tens of millions of GLBT American citizens first depend upon getting a majority of people to stop hating them? There would be a tidal wave of blood flowing in the streets and entire cities set ablaze if any other minority' s rights were put up so callously for majority approval by a lynch mob disguised as a so-called "public referendum".

The concept of a Bill of Rights and a Federal Constitution which originally guaranteed inalienable equality and unimpeachable rights is truly dead in America. Human equality and civil rights in the United States now mainly depends upon how popular you are with your local neighbors who have been, for the most part, brain-washed by the various perversions of the Christian religion into hating you -- that is, if you just happen to belong to the GLBT community.

As I stated before, the most primal, gut-level reaction to that kind of invidious injustice would be to understandably strike out with fury and outrage against your oppressors. Yet, like millions of other civilized people before us -- witness the millions of Jews who walked meekly into the concentration camps, and to their deaths, in Nazi Germany-- we too are victims of our own civility.

Ironically, the gentleness and the Christ-like benevolence of the GLBT community is our greatest virtue -- but, sadly, it can also be our greatest weakness too.

[By the way, the photo above is an early wooden crucifix of Christ carved by another famous homosexual by the name of Michelangelo. I suspect that there are far more homos in heaven than homophobic bigots. Just remember JC's own words: "That which you do unto the least among you, you do unto me." ....hmmm, ol' Satan must be stoking hell's fires in anticipation of the YES on Discrimination voters in Maine tonight, and all of the other perpetrators of hatred against their GLBT neighbors across the world. So, be sure to stock up on some suntan lotion and bring a cooler with you -- you'll need it.]

Gays in Prime Time Soaps (NOT SITCOMS, NOT CABLE, NOT DAYTIME!!!)

2009-11-03T14:58:00.001-07:00

Another example of how slow and back-ass-wards the United States is in getting around to honestly portraying same-sex love in the television media.

Marriage is the Constitutional Right of All Adult, Non-Closely-Related, American Couples

2009-09-13T21:05:00.004-06:00

In June 12, 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions of Mildred and Richard Loving in a unanimous decision, dismissing the Commonwealth of Virginia's argument that a law forbidding both white and black persons from marrying persons of another race, and providing identical penalties to white and black violators, could not be construed as racially discriminatory. The court ruled that Virginia's anti-miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In its decision, the court wrote:

"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

The Supreme Court concluded that anti-miscegenation laws were racist and had been enacted to perpetuate white supremacy:

"There is patently no legitimate overriding purpose independent of invidious racial discrimination which justifies this classification. The fact that Virginia prohibits only interracial marriages involving white persons demonstrates that the racial classifications must stand on their own justification, as measures designed to maintain White Supremacy."

Despite this Supreme Court ruling, such laws remained on the books, although unenforced, in several states until 2000, when Alabama became the last state to repeal its law against mixed-race marriage.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

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

MY TAKE ON IT

by Bud Evans

I Remain Hopeful…

Even if individual state DOMAs (the federal DOMA is still problematic) are held constitutional based on the so-called “Public Policy“ exemptions, they can still be struck down because they violate the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the US Constitution.

As marriages are considered contractual agreements and not the result of court proceedings (such as adoption -- which clearly fall within the scope of the Full Faith and Credit Clause), then the best approach to overturning DOMA would be to challenge it on Due Process and Equal Protection grounds.

The decision in Loving -v- Virginia, in which the US Supreme Court overturned interracial marriage bans in various states, was based on the aforementioned protections guaranteed in the US Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment, and not on the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

I think that approach would be best, and it could lead to striking down all other existing laws that discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation.

By the way, in Lawrence -v- Texas, this could have already been accomplished if the court ruling, which struck down the sodomy laws across the US, was based solely on a strict interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment and not on some convoluted reading of the ambiguous “Liberty Clause“ of same amendment which gave the court wiggle-room on not expanding the rights of homosexuals to be on par with those of heterosexuals in all things -- without exception. Although, there could have been unintended consequences if Justice O’Connor would have prevailed in her argument that it was an Equal Protection case . Apparently, she was still trying to justify her vote in upholding the sodomy laws earlier in Bower -v- Hardwick.

If O’Connor's argument would have won over the court we still could have sodomy laws (as long as it applied equally to both heterosexuals and homosexuals) and, ironically, forced recognition of same-sex marriage in all fifty states. What a legal nightmare that would have been. For example: you could be legally married in Texas as a same-sex couple but you would not be able to consummate the marriage without breaking the state law which could still outlaw sodomy (as long as it applied to both heterosexuals and homosexuals) -- leaving, of course, homosexuals with no physical expression to their intimate relationships at all.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, because the court limited the ruling to just the sodomy statues and then declared that those sodomy laws (as regards to consenting adults) were unconstitutional, and not in just their application to a certain group or groups, then that still left open to constitutional review all other laws that discriminate against homosexuals such as in Housing and Job Discrimination, DADT, DOMA, and a host of others equal protection arguments.

Now, we need a concise and final determination from SCOTUS that asserts that all Americans, regardless of Religion, Gender, Political Affiliation, Nationality and Sexual Orientation, etc., are entitled to the same, unabridged, constitutional guarantees and protections by the same degree and equal application of laws that pertain to all citizens of the United States of America -- without exception.

I believe our day will come. Common human decency has a way of waking up from its sleep of complacency and doing the right thing when you least expect it. In spite of everything, I have faith in what is still good in people -- as strained as it is from time to time.

…So, I remain hopeful.

Blogspot: http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com

Pam's House Blend: Where is the apology, President?

2009-06-21T23:04:00.002-06:00

Please click the headline below to read a very good essay...

Pam's House Blend:: Where is the apology, President "Fierce Advocate"?

**********************************************************

2009-06-18T06:15:00.002-06:00

We need more than just a few angry voices; we need a thunderous roar that cannot easily be ignored. Never underestimate the power of your own voice -- especially if you let your heart speak for you. You can never go wrong then.

Yesterday, I was very disappointed in President Obama’s token response to our civil rights concerns via his issuance of a “memoranda”, not even an Executive Order mind you, but some kind of quasi-official “suggestion” that certain federal agencies provide relatively non-consequential perks to the “domestic partners” of some federal employees.

No matter how they pretend to try, they just cannot take us seriously. We are cash cows for the Democrats during DNC fundraisers and a reliable crop of votes to harvest in a close election; other than that, we are nothing more to most of them than the rich crazy old aunt that must be keep hidden from view in the attic when respectable people come over for a visit.

A viable third party is our only option. Maybe not on the presidential level, just now, but on the congressional level. Just ten percent of the seats in Congress held by a truly liberal, socially responsive, third party could shift the balance of power. That third party could decide to caucus with either Republicans or Democrats and put either one in the House Speaker’s post and/or in the Senate Majority Leader’s chair. A third party could insist that progressive legislation is addressed or it could threaten to hand the gavel over to the party out of power.

Joe Lieberman, who ran as an Independent after losing in the Democratic primary in his home state, won back his seat as an Independent in the Senate. He threatened to caucus with the Republicans (hence returning power to the Republicans) if the Democrats did not make him chairman of certain powerful Senate committees, and also help him advance his own pet legislative proposals.

So, you see, if one man can be a powerbroker and tip the balance of power, imagine what a handful of liberal independent legislators could do originating from a Third Party not beholding to either the Democrats or to the Republicans.

Think about it…

(C) Bud Evans 2009

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com/

Check Out My Fine Art Prints & Posters (just click on any image)

2009-06-10T01:00:00.003-06:00

http://E-Lewis-Evans.imagekind.com/

* Click HERE to go to my Fine Arts Print Gallery...

Obama: Sugar-Coated Segregationist Views from a Slick-Talking Bigot in the White House

2009-06-06T00:04:00.008-06:00

...an essay by "Bud" E. Lewis Evans

"(Obama) essentially told them (the American people) discrimination on sexuality is wrong and, like them, he would prefer unions."

~ That is what James Withers from 365gay.com wrote in his column.

(http://www.365gay.com/blog/060509-obama-insists-hes-an-ally-to-the-gay-community/)

....HA! HA! That’s rich!!! Hmmmm...President Johnson, who pushed for, and signed, the 1964 Civil Rights Act for Blacks (even though he knew the Democrats would suffer grievously at the polls and would lose the South as many would defect to the Republican Party because of it)...Johnson would not have defended segregation like Obama.

In an interview with NBCs Brian Williams, Obama noted marriage was a state issue that was not the providence of the federal government, and talked a little bit on how he would fight discrimination.

Well. gosh, marriage was a state issue too when his own, interracial, parents’ marriage was outlawed in all of the Deep South and in many other states until 1967 when the US Supreme Court (Loving -v- Virginia) stated very clearly that marriage IS a constitutionally protected FEDERAL right.

Hmmmm… And you were a constitutional law professor, Mr. Obama? I would say that would be hard to believe if I didn‘t already realize how being a politician transforms so many people with weak moral fiber into seasoned liars.

I have no doubt that if Obama was Johnson, in the mid sixties, and if he was White, he probably would have come out in favor of allowing Blacks to sit at different tables just a little bit closer to the Whites in public restaurants -- and then joyously proclaimed himself to be a great Civil Rights Champion of the era.

Johnson did everything to make sure that even that kind of intolerable bullsh*t segregation (Obama would call it an “acceptable” compromise) didn't even see the light of day in the Congress. And let’s not forget that, before President Johnson, Harry Truman desegregated the military in 1949 when the vast, vast majority of people were against it in America -- unlike today, sixty years later, how +70% of the public are FOR lifting that immoral and unconscionable ban which prevents Gays and Lesbians service personnel from serving openly, with dignity and honor, in the US Armed Forces of 2009.

So what do we get from Obama, even when all of the major public polls demand an end to discrimination -- NOTHING! Such first-class leadership from our current "fearless" President -- even when the polls are FOR ending discrimination. Obama is not a paragon of justice and virtue. It is all packaging. It is all hype. Even the Kool-Aid drinkers are beginning to see that he is no portrait in courage. He is no agent of “change you can believe in“. It is all an illusion created by a parasitic mass media dining on mass gullibility.

Obama is no man of vision and courage. He is nothing but a self-serving bigot and a moral coward of the vilest kind. He is NO different than the Dixie-crats in the Democratic party of the Deep South, in the 1960s, who made all kinds of promises to Black people about ending discrimination just to harvest their votes, and then did absolutely nothing after elected to office. Instead, they used the same familiar language, such as: It’s just not the right time for it…we have a war going on (WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc.)….White people aren’t ready for it…there are other more important matters you know…don’t be selfish…don’t rock the boat…blah…blah…bs…bs…blah.

So, we'll see if the tens of millions of voters in the GLBT community give this homophobic assh*le a pass again in 2012. And please don't give us that hackneyed old crap about how Republicans would treat us sooooo much worst. Any comparison is like saying: Well, after all, the Republicans beat the Queers up and Democrats don't -- they just either turn their heads the other way or watch with indifference, unless, of course they are Southern Democrats (DINO -- Democrats in Name Only) who join gleefully in on the bashing with the Republicans.

Also, don’t forget who gave us DADT and DOMA in the first place. If it was just the Republicans it would not have passed with a veto proof majority. Democrats were in control of the Congress in the first half of Clinton’s first term when DADT was passed, and significant numbers of Democrats were still in Congress, in the second half of Clinton’s first term, who gave their unqualified support to DOMA. And even if both bills passed without his signature and Congress overrode his veto, Clinton could have still vetoed those noxious discriminatory laws as a matter of principle. History would have honored him for it.

So, a plague on both their houses -- both Republicans and Democrats. When you have to choose between the lesser of two evils, guess what, you still end up with EVIL. That is not acceptable to anyone with a modicum of human decency.

Likewise, if Obama thinks that we in the GLBT community should fight our battle for equality all on our own (unlike the support that Blacks got from President Johnson and the liberals in his party)…then fine, let him and the majority of Democrats get elected WITHOUT our help. F*ck them all!

But that doesn’t have to leave us without representation. If a liberal Third Party could capture at least ten percent of the seats in the House, and even a few seats in the Senate, they could be powerbrokers and control the agenda; keeping both major parties in check. It is far past time to start thinking about THAT option seriously. No more free rides from the GLBT community.

Earn our votes or do without them. It is a simple equation.

© Bud Evans, 2009

Gay Men, Straight Women Have Similar Brains

2009-06-01T08:05:00.002-06:00

Photo: Gay Men, Straight Women Have Similar Brains

Activity within the brain's amygdala—an almond-shaped structure inside each brain hemisphere that is associated with processing and storing emotions—were compared between homosexuals and heterosexuals of both genders (above).The results showed that the brains of straight men and lesbians as well as and straight women and gay men share similar characteristics. Image courtesy of National Academy of Sciences, PNAS (copyright 2008)

For the full article, clink on the link below:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080616-gay-brain.html

Famous Quotes:

2009-06-01T03:59:00.006-06:00

Abe Lincoln once said: "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

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

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

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

Mahatma Gandhi on Homosexuality

Two gay Englishmen came to Gandhi in the 1930s and asked him what he thought of their relationship. The Mahatma asked some questions and for a short time fell silent. Then he said, “The greatest gift God gives us is another person to love.” Placing the hands of each man in the other’s, he quietly and with a smile asked, “Who are we to question God’s choice?”

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

If You'd Like to Make a $$$$ Contribution to My Blog -- Click on the Link Below

2009-05-30T15:37:00.013-06:00

[Photo Credit: Getty]

~ CLICK ON THE BUTTON BELOW ~

California Supreme Court, to its Everlasting Shame, Promotes Hate and Upholds Discrimination

2009-05-27T06:01:00.009-06:00

The Third Reich is Alive and Well in the Morally Bankrupt State of California as Propostition H8 is upheld...

Anyone notice how conveniently President Barack O’Bush timed the announcement of his SCOTUS nominee to steal attention away from the California Supreme Court Prop 8 decision in order to hog the press coverage for himself? I’d wager that was not a coincidence.

Apparently, Barack O’Bush diverted enough press attention away from the GLBT Equal Rights issue to stifled a lot of questions about how little our beloved Bigot-in-Chief, Obama, is doing to make good on his campaign promises to advance the civil rights of the only minority left in the United States against whom it is still legal to discriminate. Even Rachel Maddow devoted most of her MSNBC program to the Supreme Court nominee, and very little to her own people’s civil rights struggle. Pretty sickening really.

Incidentally, I grew up in the 1960s and I can assure you that if this had happened to Black people there would be a tidal wave of blood in the streets and dozens of major cities would be set ablaze if a similar anti-Black Prop 8 was passed — by the so-called “will of the (privileged) people“.

Anyone remember Watts, and also what happened after Martin Luther King was assassinated? White bigots are terrified now of Blacks. They would never again attempt to oppress them. But, no one is afraid of the wimpy homos because they can count on the “sissies“ not to hit back.

Fear = respect. It is a fact. If you cause enough disruption in society, and if the cost of f*cking with you becomes too great a hassle, they will back down eventually and make nice. Not to mention all of the bad press the US government receives from abroad regarding its own Human Rights record. Just like what happened to Blacks in the 1960s.

Boycott!!!! Demonstrate!!!! Sit-in!!!!! Civil Disobedience!!!! Never give up!!! Never give in!!!!

Without that, our road to equality is going to be a very, very long one indeed. In order to overcome oppression you have to stand up to your oppressors, and not be afraid to get knocked on your ass occasionally. Only then will many others see the authenticity of your cause and join you.

But we’ve learned a painful lesson as well — don’t count on other minorities who have since become used to the comfort of being in the Status Quo. Most in the Black and Hispanic communities have proven themselves to be the vilest hypocrites and are not worthy of the blood that was shed on their behalf from the millions of GLBT who fought for the rights of racial minorities fifty years ago.

Shame on them all. Their 70% vote for Prop 8 speaks volumes about the Black Community’s total lack of morality regarding social justice. Martin Luther King would be repulsed by his own people’s bigotry demonstrated by their support of Prop H8. What little they care for their brothers and sisters who are also GLBT.

I am disgusted that so many white liberals helped bring equality to Blacks and Hispanic only to have their own GLBT children, a generation later, oppressed by the very same people they helped to liberate. Disgust is actually too mild a word to describe the pampered minority status the Black community wraps itself in as it kicks in the gut any other minority community struggling for their equality as well.

Shame on them all.

But what do expect when Obama himself has proven to be the public face of that same insensitivity and ingrained homophobia. The tens of millions of GLBT Americans made it possible that a Black man could become president. Now he rewards us with his indifference and turns a blind eye to our continued suffering. This treacherous political whore disgraces the office he now occupies. Obama is an anomaly who now cloaks himself in conformity in order to garner greater “acceptance“ in the community at large. In other words, what we political radicals of the 1960s used to call —

a “Sell Out“!

Just as the Radical Right continually refers to patriotic Gay men and women in the Armed Forces (who only wish to serve their country’s military openly with pride and honesty) as a “Social Experiment; so too we must also now consider Obama just a aberrant “Social Experiment” that went terrible wrong. He must not be re-elected.

Obama in 2012? No way in Hell!

(c) Bud Evans, 2009

Bill Would Give Benefits to Same-sex Partners of Federal Workers

2009-05-21T22:34:00.007-06:00

by 365gay Newscenter Staff05.21.2009 9:28am EDT

(Washington) Legislation has been introduced in the the House and Senate to provide benefits for same-sex domestic partners of federal civilian employees on the same basis as spousal benefits.

Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act is sponsored by Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) in the House and Sens. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) in the Senate.

The benefits would include participation in applicable retirement programs, life and health insurance benefits, and family and medical leave.

“This legislation would allow the federal government to keep pace with other top employers,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

To read the rest of this article, click on the following link:
http://www.365gay.com/news/bill-would-give-benefits-to-same-sex-partners-of-federal-workers/

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

MY TAKE ON IT...
by Bud Evans

I can see the cobwebs already forming on this bill (like the DADT repeal bill). After all, President Barack O'Bush is too busy doing more significant and daring things like: giving pro-abortion commencement speeches at Catholic Universities (how brave) and sponsoring Def Jam ethnic poetry readings at the White House (how stereotypical).

So, why would he (or the Democrats in Congress) want to waste time on civil rights legislation when they are too busy passing laws that allow drunken tourists to carry loaded weapons in our National Parks (like Yellow Stone and the Grand Canyon National Park, etc)?

Just look at the math so far: 2008 Democrats (plus) Barack O'Bush (equals) 1990s Democrats (plus) Bill Clinton (multiplied by) “F*ck Off…shooo… get out here you pervs and pests!” to the GLBT community (equals) a bunch of dumb-asses who will believe anything they‘re told.

Are we just going to bitch and whine and accept our fate like a bunch of whimpering boot-lickers?

No?

Solution: A massive shift to a third party by the tens of millions of very active voters in the GLBT community would shake up the treacherous bastards for sure. If they lose another round to the Republicans let them know if was because they cannot count on our support until they have earned it.

Tell them, in no uncertain terms: Do not rely on us, if we cannot rely on you!

Now, as far as the Republicans being back in power-- who cares, what have the Dems done for us other than give us false hope and then laugh in our collective faces as they pull the rug out from under us again? The guys with the big bucks still get to write the laws in Washington DC on Health Care, Credit Cards, Civil Liberties, and…well, hell, just about everything else. It’s business as usual as the Democrats and Republicans just play musical chairs in Congress each election cycle. More reason than ever for a grassroots, truly liberal, Third Party which, with just ten percent of the seats in Congress, could be power-brokers and control the agenda without the usual Puppet-master Corporate Overlords pulling all the strings in DC .

As a former life-long Democrat, I feel more disgust for a friend who betrays me than for an enemy I knew hated me all along. At least the latter doesn’t steal your trust and then stab you in the back. At least, with an honest bigot, you can see it coming.

The majority of the Democratic Party (especially in the circles of power, i.e. Sen. Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Obama) are either apathetic towards us (except during a presidential election year) or outright contemptuous of us -- including all Dixie-crats, Conservative Democrats, Spineless Liberals and Barack “I don’t believe in gay marriage” Obama.

They will take advantage of you every single time -- if you let them. The Jewish, Black and Hispanic Community have learned that lesson, and the Democrats are truly scared sh*tless of screwing with them.

So why haven't we woke up to the fact that we have power too? But power is nothing unless you have the guts to use it. So…use it already!

Stop being an Obama-bot…stop being a dependable and “useful” fool for the Democrats…get ANGRY and stay that way until we have achieved our liberation.

Politicians (like most of us) live in fear also. They, of course, live in constant fear of losing an election because of screwing with the wrong people. So… let them fear us for a change. Let them know that they cannot automatically count on our votes -- which they will always need, and beg for, in a close election. Let them know that if they are going to be political whores to all of their other constituents, then either put out for us too, or give us our money back and don‘t waste our time anymore.

Please GLBT community, get off your knees for a change, and remember…you are only as weak or as strong as you are willing to be. Don’t let others define you.

So….

!!!WAKE UP, PEOPLE!!!! ….please.

The future is ours -- OWN IT!

© Bud Evans 2009

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com/

Martin Luthur King's Legacy....

2009-05-21T15:34:00.002-06:00

Martin Luther King's Legacy....

“Gay and Lesbian people have families and their families should have legal protections. A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is a form of gay bashing and will do nothing at all to protect traditional marriage.” --- Mrs. Coretta Scott King

Jack O'Dell, former Southern Christian Leadership Conference activist & aide to Dr. Martin Luther King states: "Dr. King would have fully supported Gay Marriage."

...Coretta Scott King agreed.

* Listen to Lea Gilmore's interview about Black & LGBT CivilRights @ OUTTAKE VOICES™ NO BISHOP GENE ROBINSON ON HBO INAGUARATION View Our Short Trailer on Gay Marriage
posted by Charlotte Robinson at

Supreme Court Prospect Draws Criticism from Gay Groups...

2009-05-15T21:49:00.014-06:00

The Associated Press 05.15.2009 8:32am EDT

(Atlanta) Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, considered a potential nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, has drawn criticism from gay rights groups after announcing plans to join a think tank whose founder is an outspoken opponent of gay marriage.

Jeff Graham, executive director of the gay rights group Georgia Equality, said Sears' decision to join the Institute for American Values is "something that's very troubling, concerning and at the very least disappointing to me."

State Rep. Karla Drenner, the state's only openly gay legislator, said she felt "betrayed." ..."I don't understand her committing her energies to an organization that doesn't believe in equality for everybody," Drenner said.

...In 2006, Sears joined a unanimous decision that upheld Georgia’s same-sex marriage ban.

For the full article, click on the link below:

http://www.365gay.com/news/supreme-court-prospect-draws-criticism-from-gay-groups/

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

MY TAKE ON IT...

by Bud Evans

Sorry, Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears sounds like a potential fellow segregationist -- like Obama.

Such irony that a formerly oppressed minority would take the side of upholding the anti-christian, high moral crime of discrimination and favor keeping a fellow minority "in their place".

To paraphrase Jesus “what-the-hell-are-they-doing-in-my-name“ Christ:

What does it profit one to rule the world by upholding the special privileges of the status quo only to lose your soul?

In regards to Obama, most of us in the LGBT community thought that we were voting for Superman when, in reality, we just replaced Lex Luthor with his evil twin. I think I’d rather have the real thing than some viper who lures you in closer with lies just so it can strike with less effort.

Let’s just take a look at Obama’s record so far:

* Obama now supports George W. Bush-style Military Tribunals for foreign war detainees (he was against them as candidate Obama).

* Obama has expanded (not limited) Bush-style warrantless wiretapping; adding special guarantees of government immunity and expanding his “special powers” (without Congressional Oversight) of the Executive Branch.

* Obama has stifled government investigations into Torture and the Human Rights Abuses of the former administration.

* Obama gives away hundreds of billions of tax-payer’s dollars to Wall Street, and then he just turns his back on the union workers who supported him in the Auto Industry.

* Obama allows his minions in Congress to conduct hearings on Heath Care Reform where they invite profit-driven vultures and profiteering extortionists from the Insurance Industry to sit at the front of the table when formulating Health Care Reform -- while they simultaneously arrest and expel single-payer National Health Care advocates from the hearings.

* On civil rights, Obama has de-prioritized repeal of DADT which has destroyed the military careers of over twelve thousand loyal, patriot Americans (even as Candidate Obama campaigned to push Congress to overturn that odious Jim Crow-style affront to human dignity).

* Obama (and Pelosi/Reid) have expressed no interest whatsoever in overturning DOMA so that those of us who are legally married (or partnered under some other kind of quasi-marriage-like legal arrangement) can receive federal benefits -- as Obama promised.

* Obama’s apologists say that he is too busy trying to save the nation and the economy and jobs -- so, then why isn’t he pushing for job equality and protections (ENDA) for the tens of millions of GLBT citizens who do not have the same level of job protections as ninety percent of the population?

In the final analysis, the Democrats and, especially Obama, are NOT “The Change You Can Believe In“! As bigoted, odious and villainous as the Republican Party is, at least they are upfront about it. Whereas, the Democrats, along with their lying segregationist, bigoted demagogue, Barak Obama, are master deceivers who troll the GLBT community for money, political volunteers, and votes -- only to slap us all in the face with either that tiresome mantra of “the time is not right” excuse or just an outright “get out of my face” avoidance of us after an election -- that is, after they have exploited us repeatedly in order to grab political power.

The Democratic Party un-official line: “Hey, just because they took us to the prom, it doesn’t mean we have to dance with them -- right?”

….Well, that is their attitude. And we are expected to gleefully accept that? But what do you expect when all we get from our fearless “leadership” in the GLBT community is to watch them smile and plead: "may-I-have-another-punch-the-gut-sir” and (while bending over to kiss the feet of their heterosexual overseers) “will-you-please-kick-us-in-the-ass-again-master“ ? The subservience from of our masochistic, fan-boy GLBT, Democratic fund-raising, political social clubs and toadies in Washington is sickening.

Fortunately, amongst the deluded millions of Obama sycophants who initially supported this dishonorable bigot, there are millions now who are finally starting to see the light.

It will be a third party ticket for me and my spouse next time -- unless the Segregationists Democrats in Congress and the Bigot-in-Chief in the White House get the message. I am sure many millions in the GLBT community will also express a similar outrage at the ballot box. Maybe then "our friends” on Capital Hill, and in the White House, will finally get the message that when you barely win an election, with a desperately cobbled together coalition of minority voters, you don't dare betray your constituents by ignoring their fundamental demands for equal rights after you are in office.

If things don’t change, and quickly, I’m ready to:

!!! Ditch President Barack O'Bush in 2012 !!!!

© Bud Evans

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com/

Live a Good Life

2009-05-09T00:46:00.001-06:00

Marcus Aurelius:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid."

~ The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius
Born 26 April 121 - Died 17 March 180 (aged 58)

~ The Not So Liberal Democrats Who Eat Their Own Step-Children ~ by Bud Evans

2009-05-04T22:52:00.003-06:00

Many in Bill Clinton’s own party (as personified in the poison-toad embodiment of former Sen. Sam Nunn — once nefarious head of the Armed Services Committee) joined with the Repugs and opposed Clinton on lifting the ban on gays in the military.

Yes, Bill Clinton could have shown some guts and vetoed both DADT and DOMA — even when Congress had the votes to override his veto — because at least he would have gone on record as standing up for what was the right thing to do.

And yet, no liberal Democrat who voted to lift the ban lost re-election. Oddly, most the Dems who lost re-election in the mid-term elections were those backstabbing Blue-dog Democrats (also known as conservative Dixie-crats…also known as Republicans in drag).

And what did the sore-loser Dixie-crats blame for their defeat? Well, of course, the issue of DADT. Boo-hoo!

The fact of the matter really was that they actually lost the very crucial support of their Liberal Base because they acted like Republicans and joined with the Republican Goon Squad. A fact that many conservative Democrats still refuse to acknowledge, and who still foolishly believe that true Conservatives put them into office in the first place. In a close election when you really need your base, that kind of delusional thinking can lead to political suicide. Now, Obama seems to be heading down that path.

As Pres. Truman once said (paraphrasing here): If you are a Democrat running as a Republican don’t be surprised if you lose to a Republican. After all, why would any conservative vote for you when they can get the real thing.

Obama is a coward (even more so than Clinton) because he wont even give the appearance that he is fighting for our equality. He is nothing but a fraud with good speech-writers. Other than that he is an empty suit with no soul.

Obama is for Obama. He is more interested in his legacy as the first sort-of-Black president than by actually sticking his neck out to do the right thing. His lack of bravery will only guarantee him a place in history based on the irrelevant fact of his race — but certainly not for any great act of political courage on his part.

Just remember, for all their faults (and even in spite of their other positive accomplishments) Truman will be forever remembered for desegregating the military when the vast, vast majority of people in the US were against it; Johnson will be forever honored for his steadfast advocacy of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — even though it cost him and his party their previous political dominance of the South.

And Obama’s historical contribution for minority rights?

….well, after all he was the first mixed-race President. Other than that — not so much.

That, of course, is contingent upon him either following his current trend of apathy regarding the institutionalized bigotry imposed upon the GLBT community or actually standing up for “Change You Can Believe In“. You remember that now hollow-sounding mantra of those increasingly false and hypocritical presidential campaign promises -- don't you?

If nothing changes, then Obama’s civil rights legacy — concerning the only American citizens (the GLBT community) who are still fighting against legal, government sanctioned, discrimination — will be a big unforgivable failure on his part. That is what future generations will remember regarding Obama’s callousness, his inaction, and his lack of leadership in the social justice arena. That will be far more relevant to history that the insignificant issue of Obama’s mixed race heritage.

Sadly, I’d be very surprised to see this political opportunist change his spots. His primary self-serving interests seem to be restricted to a “not rock the boat“ political philosophy, and also confined to just creating a high profile for African Americans who no longer suffer legal, government mandated, discrimination. He doesn’t represent all the people — he is just for those who are most useful to him or for those who are most like him.

What a disappointment. What a shame. What a tragedy for all fair-minded Americans.

© Bud Evans, 2009

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com/

"Religion is the Crack Cocaine of Humanity" ~ by Bud Evans

2009-04-11T06:12:00.003-06:00

Even in the face of a multitude of attacks which the LGBT community has suffered in the last several years under the dictatorship of der Fuhrer Bush and the RepubliNazis; regardless of these cretins' desperate and cynical machination by making same-sex marriage equality a wedge issue by which to goose their spiteful lynch-mob into a frenzied stampede to the polls on election day; notwithstanding the Democrats cowardly "playing it safe" official national policy of standing for absolutely nothing until the polls say it's ok to do so; despite it all, my bubble of optimism remains unbroken.

The tide of history is rising at our side. It is just a matter of time before we are free. Nothing will prevent it; nothing will deter it. It is far past time that the phrase, "Liberty and Justice for All", means something in the USA. Soon it will, and all of the homophobes can go put keffiyehs on their heads and immigrate to Saudi Arabia if they want the law to impose their religious lunacy on those who do not wish to live their kind of hate-filled lives.

The horrors that are committed in the name of any alleged "god" makes one wonder if there is anything in any religion that is worthy of even the slightest degree of spiritual or emotional investment. Organized religions are either private clubs; political caucuses or lynch mobs. Far too many are simply a curse on humanity.

Someone once told me that it isn't religion that does these things, it's the people. To which I responded: Yeah, that's kind of like the simple-minded mantra of the NRA which moronically claims, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" -- as if no contributing relationship or association exists. Nope, sorry that wont wash anymore.

Furthermore, religions often provide a twisted justification for violence --they always have. This is especially true when you have people in the Protestant Evangelical Cults; in the Catholic Klan, and in the Muslim Mob who constantly belittle, persecute, and attack the hundreds of millions of Gays and Lesbians in this world. Anything that threatens their limited world view, based on their irrational obsession with superstition, must be controlled, altered or destroyed -- according to them.

I ask all people of “faith” to give me one rational reason; just ONE carefully thought-out and intelligent justification for the maltreatment and the limitations on the civil rights of Gay and Lesbian citizens around the globe. But they can't give you one.

That is why these hate-filled despots turn to the superstitious mandates of religion in order to justify their evil acts. None of the powerful, of any faith, can hold the moral high-ground -- especially when self-styled "Christian" and militant Muslim leaders encourage and incite violent anti-social knee-jerk reactions in their adherents through their perpetually demeaning rhetoric and their pathological behavior towards Gay and Lesbian human beings.

As I've always said, religion is the last refuge for the scoundrel. It will always be that until people respect the humanity in their fellow man and woman, and not try to force people to be just like them. Nothing is more destructive to one’s sense of individuality and to the human spirit or to one’s pursuit of happiness than imposing one group’s beliefs on another -- either through legislative action or through force of violence.

If the old maxim: "I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll fight to the death for your right so say it", could be amended to include, "I may not agree with the choice of what kind of non-related, adult human being you choose to love in a monogamous relationship, but I’ll defend your right to make that decision for yourself." Then, if only people could mind their own business and not try to take away from others the rights they so easily take for granted for themselves….well, then it would be a safer and a more respectful world for millions more.

There is hardly a mole-hill of good that religion has done compared to the mountain of evil that most Abrahamic religions (extreme Orthodox Judaism, Fundamentalist Protestantism and current Catholic Christianity -- as well as militant Islam) have directly and indirectly perpetuated by forcing their tenets on others who do not bend a knee willingly to these retrograde expressions of tribalism. Yet some people say that organized religions have performed some good functions. By comparison, yes, some people can legitimately admire Hitler because his socialist policies helped to get the German people out of the Great Depression. But do we forgive him for all of his atrocities because he did some good too? I think not.

Likewise, in light of all the bad that has been done in the "cause" of religion, wouldn't we be better off without any of it? Just like we’re better off without Communism and Nazism. Wouldn't humanity function better and grow more creatively and be more productive in a secular, rational society where the individuality is more encouraged than blind conformity to a herd mentality that make a virtue out of ignorance and superstition?

If you can't be a good person and teach the ethics of right and wrong and proper social behavior to your children without beating some religious dogma into their heads, then you are a bad parent. Reliance on superstition is a poor substitute for reason. Religion most often relies on stifling curiosity about the natural world and about life's great mysteries– and that makes religion very dangerous and extremely detrimental to human advancement.

Many religions have so much in common with communism and fascist regimes which have created similar cult messiahs, such as: Stalin, Mao, Jerry Falwell, Fidel Castro, Pat Robertson, Ronald Reagan, Ayatollah Khomeini, Adolf Hitler, James Dobson, Osama bin Laden, many former Popes, especially the current one, etc. And similar demands are made by them regarding mindless conformity for "the greater good" of society. In other words, to quash opposition to their despotic grip on power.

Communists, Fascists, Muslims and Christians all burned books when so-called "dangerous thoughts or ideas" were promulgated in them. Moreover, similiar brainless "religion-based" censorship often targets art and even music, and attempts to suppress all forms of non-conformity to their cults as well. It is so obvious that religion is antithetical to human development. It retards rather advances mankind. It is a millstone that we should no longer have to endure.

"Religion is the opiate of the people," Karl Marx used to say. Too bad ol' Karl substituted one form of totalitarianism and self-delusion for another. Although, regarding one thing he was right -- it’s about time most of the planet heads to the Betty Ford clinic and gets detoxed off from organized religions of all persuasions. It would be a far, far better world if they did.

(c) "Bud" E. Lewis Evans

New York Gov. Paterson Asks That Same-sex Marriage Equality Bill Be Introduced

2009-04-10T02:33:00.014-06:00

(illustration credit: Mirko Ilic)

NY gov. calls for gay marriage vote
By 365gay Newscenter Staff04.09.2009 1:07pm EDT

(New York City) New York Gov. David Paterson wants the state Senate to vote on gay marriage, even if there currently are not enough votes to pass marriage equality legislation - a position that puts him at odds with his own party’s leadership.

Legislation that would allow same-sex couples to marry in New York State passed the Assembly in 2007, but the Senate, controlled by the GOP at the time, refused to take up the bill.

Democrats now control the Senate, but State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith (D) has said he does not have the votes to pass marriage equality legislation and will not bring the bill to a vote.

Both Smith and Paterson have been outspoken supporters of marriage equality, but while Smith wants a “go slowly” approach, the governor said a vote should be held this session.

Paterson told an Ithaca radio station that he intends to submit a bill to the legislature in advance of the annual lobbying day by Empire Pride Agenda set this year for April 28.

“Why can’t a bill just be on the floor and lose?” Paterson told WHCU-AM, adding “if you have the votes later on to pass it, bring it back.”

For the rest of the article go to: http://www.365gay.com/news/ny-gov-calls-for-gay-marriage-vote/

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

MY TAKE ON IT.... by Bud Evans

I disagree with the sentiment, by some in the GLBT community, that: "...it may stop our momentum if we force a vote too soon."

They didn’t have the votes in Vermont to override the Governor’s veto at first, but they tried again anyway -- and they won. What if they would have just folded their tents and said that it was a lost cause and went home? In that case, Vermont would not be the fourth truly free state in America.

We are now down to several apartheid states in the US and far too many despotic states where loving same-sex couples are forced into a pernicious classification as being legally estranged from one another -- even when they live under the same roof and have been mutually supportive for decades.

But the tide is turning in our favor. As more states come on board, eventually the “good faith and credit” clause of the US Constitution will have to be invoked and DOMA (both federally and state adopted) will ultimately be challenged in federal court. And even if Congress repeals the federal DOMA (not likely), state DOMAs will still have to be challenged as well.

Sadly, all that the anti-marriage-equality state amendments and federal anti-gay legislation (like DOMA and DADT) are accomplishing is just to erode the US Constitution’s once unimpeachable Bill of Rights. They have made it appear as if this universal declaration of civil liberties is not worth the parchment it was hand written on. The Constitution was created to protect each and every one of us from the whims of the mob. Birthrights were established that were meant to be inalienable. That is not a reliable promise anymore.

Obviously, the US Constitution has had to be amended to allow the same rights of citizenship to be extended to racial minorities and to women who were intentionally excluded -- but same-sex oriented citizens never were explicitly excluded as the aforementioned groups apparently were. The US Constitution is the only thing of value which the United States offered in the form of a civilizing contribution to human society, and even it is still subject to threats of evisceration then it does not conform to group prejudices and religion-based bigotry -- i.e. the so-called Defense of Marriage Amendment.

Sure, seeking legislative relief is risky business -- nevertheless, it is still a viable legal option open to us. But to imply that demanding legislative action “may stop our momentum” is like saying if I fall off a horse I’m trying to learn to ride, then it would be better if I just come back in a few weeks or months or years later and then maybe try again after the horse decides to be tamer. No, you actually lose the “momentum” when you give up trying. Never give up and never relent for a moment. You're only defeated when you run out of hope, and the desire to take advantage of each and every opportunity that presents itself.

Yes, we must start to weed out all of the hypocrites who take our money and our votes. Likewise, we must actively campaign for the genuinely caring politicians who actually have earned our respect and our support.

I say go ahead with the vote -- come what may. If we lose, then we throw those bums out who lied to us; if we win, then we reward our supporters. It is a simple proposition, because eventually we will win. History is on our side, and people in power are starting to think about their own contribution to this last great civil rights struggle in America. Will they be on the winning side of history or on the losing side? Believe me, they’re thinking about their legacy too.

Our rights are not (as Obama's Secretary of Defense, Gates, implied -- no doubt echoing Obama's own repulsive apathy towards us) something that you can put off indefinitely, or as Gates actually said: "...let's just kick that can down the road a while."

Imagine, our equality is nothing more than just a rusty old tin can that needs to be kicked out of the way whenever possible. Uh huh, "change you can believe in" alright. So for all of you who insisted that we chose between the lesser of two evil, well you got your wish -- more institutionalized evil for the sake of political expediency with loyalty only to its own ambition.

We have been told, even by some of our political “friends”, basically not to look to Washington for solutions to “our problems” anytime soon. So, be sure to remind them not to look to us on election day in 2010 and 2012 either. There are always third party alternatives. Only ten percent of congress in control of a liberal third party could swing things in our favor as both Democrats and Republicans vie to caucus with that third party for legislative advantage.

Other than that, it looks like we’re on our own, kids!

The state by state strategy is starting to look like a good approach so far. But we must still keep the pressure on Congress for federal recognition of the marriages rights we have won. So now, more than ever, we must take advantage of the fact that the train has left the station -- so, get on board or stand out of the way. There is no other choice, because sitting on our hands and just watching while others fight our battles against those who would turn back the clock is not an option anymore.

@ Bud Evans, 2009

Obama: Not an Agent of Hope and Change -- Just Another Lying Politican

2009-04-06T06:27:00.005-06:00

If the USA is ever to be united as one country, we must end any modern equivalent of the odious "Jim Crow" laws in America.

Separate is Never Equal.

Unfortunately, both Republicans and Democrats exploit and enable varying degrees of mob-driven bigotry; capitulating too often to this hate in the guise of religion. They have allowed to exist this false premise that exclusions from one's birthright of full equality is somehow justifiable in America -- that is, if one does not belong to an "approved" group.

But bigotry is never acceptable -- in whatever ugly form it finds personification. And it will never be justifiable as long as the American Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution continues to stand for anything at all.

So what does Obama do? He throws raw meat to the very same wolves who would have our bones (and his) for breakfast. And there are still so-called "Liberals" who would support this hypocrite because Obama doesn’t have a problem with members of the GLBT community sitting at the back of the bus -- as long as the GLBT community knows their place. Jeeez!

From a White House statement:
“The President respects the decision of the Iowa Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage. Although President Obama supports civil unions rather than same-sex marriage, he believes that committed gay and lesbian couples should receive equal rights under the law.”

I never thought I'd live to see the day that a formerly oppressed minority would get all "Jim Crow" on another minority, and then be so proud about it. "Separate but (un) Equal" indeed -- how shameful.

Some "liberals" call us selfish for wanting the same rights they take so easily for granted. Selfish like Martin Luther King who fought for the civil rights of his people when there was an even bigger war going on in the 60s. Remember Vietnam anyone?

And then there was President Johnson who sacrificed the Southern vote in order to ensure equality for Blacks by pushing for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Johnson confided to his intimates, at the time of the signing, that because of his support for racial equality, the Democrats would lose their political domination of the South, but he sincerely believed it was the right thing to do. What would Obama sacrifice for us?

While I am concerned about the federal courts -- the arena where our Constitutional rights will ultimately be re-discovered -- I am convinced that Obama will do nothing for us while in office; neither will a Democratic-controlled congress -- which almost immediately after election goes into a re-election mode.

Musings for Today - March 19th, 2009

2009-03-19T15:13:00.005-06:00

God

loving figment of your imagination
or dangerous delusion?

... you decide.

now discuss it amongst yourselves
-- without the guns and knives.

~ Memorable Quotes from "Bud" E. Lewis Evans

(c) "Bud" E. Lewis Evans, 2009

From Our Commander & Chief Hypocrite

2009-03-18T21:32:00.006-06:00

(click on the images below to enlarge them)...

...When a state senator he went on record as fully embracing marriage equality for Gays and Lesbians. When running for national office, Obama opposes marriage equality for Gays and Lesbians. Will the "real" Obama please stand up!

Can you say: Flip Flop Obama, anyone? IS this just another typical political whore who will say anything to any constituency in order to get elected?

Q: Is this the "CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN" promised by Obama?

A: Yep, if anything, Obama is "changeable". What a scumbag!

From Our Commander & Chief Hypocrite …

Twelve years ago Obama answered a questionnaire regarding his political positions when running for state office in Illinois. On the questionnaire, Obama emphatically stated his beliefs and told what he would do in regard to civil rights legislation for the GLBT community.

Click on the link below and read what he said. Pay close attention to question number six. Click on the photo to enlarge it. Then please tell us all in the GLBT community how virtuous and irreproachable this man is.

For the full story go to:

http://www.queerty.com/obama-supported-gay-marriage-12-years-ago-today-not-so-much-20090113/

~ "Bud" E. Lewis Evans

"The GLBT Community Desperately Needs a New Stonewall" by Bud Evans

2009-03-18T21:02:00.005-06:00

For all who are absolutely opposed to aggressive protests, I must remind you that the decade in which civil rights legislation was finally passed that guaranteed the Black community its full and equal citizenship under the law was filled with violence. I lived though it, I was a teenager then. It was the 1960s.

So, what event happened that ultimately brought equality to Blacks? It wasn’t Martin Luther King’s laudable march to Selma and his peaceful protests — which usually ended in him being set upon by police dogs and put in jail. No, it was the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King, and the weeks of rioting nationwide that ensued, which scared the holy sh*t out of the White supremacists in all branches of government and in all walks of life. They finally realized that this dog bites back and that you kick it at your own peril.

The billions of dollars in property damage nationwide, coupled with a tsunami of sudden fear and insecurity felt by White people, forced the White majority to respect the rights of the 13% of Americans who were Black and who were also fed up at being treated like dirt; forced to conform to second class citizenship, and even murdered — kind of like the GLBT community today. So, in that instance, peaceful protests did not work, but fear of retaliation from the oppressed did work.

I hear time and time again from the nervous Nancys and appeasers in our community about how we should all be on the “down low” or else we will face the fearsome “backlash” –such as the sweeping anti-marriage inequality amendments of the last fifteen years throughout the United States.

But ask yourself this: If there would have been violent riots, by the GLBT community, in the first state to have passed such a vile amendment, how eager would the rest of the states have been to pass them? If there would have been massive civil unrest on an enormous scale, thousands of times larger than the Stonewall Riots across the nation, how could they ignore us then?

Just look how everybody, worldwide, knows about our little uprising at the Stonewall tavern in New York in the late 60s. They even have a civil rights group called “Stonewall” in England — and it wasn’t even their riot. So why is Stonewall remembered and not one damn “peaceful” protest celebrated or even recalled in our movement?

Why? Because Stonewall was transitional and transformational. And not because it was peaceful, but because it was a violent rejection of the presumed privilege of a heterocentric society and its defenders. We finally stood up to the bullies. And bullies usually only pick on people which they are confident will not fight back. What a shock Stonewall must have been to them

Bullies, like bigots, are cowards and will often back down if you push back. Be pro-active. Organize sit-ins and join national boycotts (it worked against Coors beer — remember?). Target the states who have added anti-gay amendments to the their so-called “Bill of Rights” i.e. State Constitutions. Encourage others to not vacation in those states or to purchase products made in those states. Make it clear what you are doing and also make it very clear that you will work actively against any politician (including the current president) who is not working on what we also elected them for — our civil rights.

To be certain, sure remember and celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Stonewall this year, but let’s make our own Stonewalls today as well.

Also, really ask yourself this: What the f*ck have we done since then? Isn’t it far past time that we do something historical again?

© “Bud” E. Lewis Evans, 2009

Martin Luther King Would Be Ashamed of Black Folks Today

2009-03-07T14:56:00.005-07:00

Martin Luther King Would Be Ashamed of Most People in the Black Community Today in America ...by E. Lewis Evans

According to CNN News exit polls: a staggering 70% of Blacks (Male and Female) voted YES on Proposition 8 which - in effect - removed the recently established fundamental constitutional right of same-sex couples to wed in California. The Black community was the largest minority voting block to take away this right from a fellow minority group. This was larger than any other racial minority who voted on the controversial proposition. Second to that was the 54% of Latino men and 52% of Latino women who voted YES on Prop 8. In contrast, a slim majority of Whites, 51%, voted NO on Prop 8 and against writing discrimination into the state constitution. Likewise, 61% of young people (18-24) voted NO on Proposition 8, as well as 59% of 25-29 year olds voted NO on Prop 8.

In view of this outrageous assault on human equality, I feel compelled to remind the 70% of the Black Community in California, who voted to deny the GLBT community its equality, to remember what historical Civil Rights Anniversary it will be in America in 2009.

The irony of this coming year is that it is the fiftieth anniversary of Brown -v- Topeka Board of Education and the US Supreme Court decision which desegregated public schools and struck down the hideous institution of racial apartheid in the United States. In view of this, I believe that it could also be a wonderful landmark year for the GLBT community if Prop 8 in California is overturned on this historical anniversary?

Regarding another ironic forward and a backwards stepping milestone, it is also worth noting that we have just elected a pro-segregationist Black man as President of the “not-so-United" States. A president who believes that it is perfectly acceptable to treat fellow Americans as second class citizens -- as long as that treatment is limited to the GLBT community. Of all people to have ascended to the presidency, we, in the United States, are now ruled by a member of a formerly oppressed minority who is a bit too comfortable rationalizing a so-called "Separate, but Equal" official policy of treatment towards another disfavored minority in order to maintain the so-called status quo.

Even in view of this hypocrisy, I still have hope that eventually common sense and decency will prevail. I sincerely believe that we in the GLBT community are on the winning side of history. Regretfully, so many of our fellow travelers along the road to social justice have forgotten that we in the GLBT community are still being forced to endure so many of the same injustices from which they, and their children, have long since been liberated. Their liberation came to fruition with the full support of the GLBT community when the African American community most desperately needed it. So now where is their support for us?

Sadly, they who once were persecuted now join hand-in-hand with the persecutors. How utterly shameful. History will remember that as well. That is their dishonorable contribution to the continuing legacy of liberation whose fruits they once voraciously reaped for themselves, which in return they now selfishly deny to others who are still starving for freedom. The reciprocity of freedom from oppression is something that should be expected from the the formerly oppressed and it should have been forthcoming, but the Black Community’s lack of empathy towards the suffering of another oppressed minority says lot about the collective conscience, or lack there of, by this formerly subjugated group in our society.

Still, kudos for California State Attorney General Jerry Brown who refused to defend this repugnant state constitutional amendment on behalf of the bigots who voted for it. It is refreshing to see allies who have nothing to gain from our struggle other than the gratification of being part of an ongoing effort to uphold the concept of equal justice for all. Unlike Obama, Attorney General Brown is not an equivocator on human rights. He does not weigh on the "Scales of Justice" his own political ambitions balanced against the equal rights of his fellow citizens. So, as rare as it seems, there actually are a few politicians in America who do have a modicum of personal integrity.

Hope is still alive.

(c) "Bud" E. Lewis Evans
homepage: http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com

Americans are NOT stupid? - WITH SUBTITLES

2009-03-02T06:16:00.001-07:00

Sad...very sad indeed. Even some of the older people are as stupid as the younger one. So much for the better state of education fifty years ago.

Sean Penn Wins Best Actor Oscar for "Milk"

2009-02-23T06:19:00.005-07:00

*********************************************

Sean Penn's performance in "Milk" was inspirational. The GLBT community desperately needs its own version of Martin Luther King. Too bad we lost Harvey Milk.

Gay Americans are the ONLY minority against which it is legal to discriminate in the United States of America.

Another shameful legacy for America's children to have to correct; passed down by, hopefully, the last generation of legislatively supported bigots this country will ever produce.

Someday soon this vile disease of group-hatred will forever die out in America. On that day, America's unfulfilled promise of "Liberty and Justice for All" will actually stand for something more than just pernicious hypocrisy and meaningless rhetoric.

Hopefully...someday...soon.

(C) Bud Evans, Feb 2008

When Is Our Turn Coming?

2009-02-11T07:17:00.005-07:00

I remember, when I was a kid growing up, we had several black families in our neighborhood. I recall how most of the little black girls on our block played with white baby dolls -- there were very few black dolls in the major department stores at that time. Also, there were no black Barbies for the older black girls. No black GI Joes for the boys either. In fact, very few black people at all were even seen on TV as well -- except for maids, chauffeurs and, of course, “Amos and Andy“.

It was controversial back then to be seen catering to the Black community. Many of the “mainstream” manufacturers of toys (and of most other products in general, too) did not see much profit in selling race-specific products nor even advertising directly to Blacks. Many business also feared losing the patronage of white folks who objected to such overt associations with Blacks.

But things changed.

We too could see more products specific to the GLBT community (and we will someday) when we become full incorporated (others say assimilated) into American society. When the social cloak of imposed invisibility is finally lifted from our lives; when we can celebrate each other, our community, and our loved ones openly -- then, we will become a more viable market for all purveyors of commercial products. Even the simple gesture of creating a “wedding card” for our niche market is a good start if it helps to integrate the GLBT community into the mainstream of society with all of its banalities.

I live in the town (Kansas City) that is Hallmark’s corporate headquarters. It is one of the largest employers here. My brother worked there for many years. A great many people in the GLBT community in KC is, and always have been, employed there. I’m glad that they had taken this tentative baby step (albeit not widely known nor distributed) by including our community in their product line. But this new “gay friendly” outreach has not always been the case with Hallmark.

I’ve known how homophobic they used to be -- even in view of the fact that there wouldn’t have been much of a Hallmark if it wasn’t, in large part, due to the contributions of their GLBT employees -- especially on the art staff. They used to be very openly hostile to any Gay person who wasn’t in the art department. A friend of mine was in management and almost got fired when he was seen going into a gay bar next to the dinner playhouse his boss was attending with some company big wigs. He was told by his boss the next day that just because they had to tolerate the “queers” in the art department that didn’t mean that they would put up with any “fags” in management.

As I said before -- things change. It’ll happen. The next generation always looks back with disgust upon the previous generation’s shameful prejudices. Our day in the sun will come too. And when it does, the ramble-rousing, group-hate exploiting politicians -- along with the poisonous profiteering theocrats -- will join the KKK in the dust bin of history. And the world will be a better place for it.

Oh, and by the way, to those who have stated incorrectly that the GLBT is a infinitesimal part of the commercial market, please read the Wall Street Journal (no friend of the GLBT community) whose own research, over many years, has concluded that the GLBT community generally outspends all other minority communities in the marketplace -- especially as related to home furnishings, automobiles, real estate, luxury items and travel. So please, don’t “undersell” the GLBT community nor underestimate their essential importance to the economic health of the United States. To business owners, I suggest that if you ignore the GLBT community you do so at your own peril during these financially uncertain times.

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com/

Obama's Swings His Wrecking Ball Against the Wall of Separation of Church and State

2009-02-09T05:48:00.003-07:00

Where there are state or local laws prohibiting hiring choices based on sexual orientation in the federally funded portion of the programs, Obama has said he would support those being applied.

Uh, that means in about thirty or so state then it would be LEGAL to discriminate against GLBT in hiring. Yep, Change You Can (’t) Believe in alright -- but business as usual when it comes to the homos.

To those commentators who said that we can’t have charitable programs without church involvement - a big BS to you. If you really want federal money to flow back to the community, without church/state issues, then open up secular government food pantries and shelters throughout the country and hire anyone qualified for employment without discrimination of any kind. Keep the goddamn churches away from our tax dollars.

The leadership in the Democratic Party believes that the Republicans had hijacked religion; now they think it is their turn. But ask yourself, how well did that work out for the Republicans in the last election, eh?

As to Rev. Obama, and his not-so-subtle wrecking ball approach to breaking down the wall of separation between church and state, we should all now bow our heads collectively and pray that Thomas Jefferson doesn't completely turn to dust while spinning in his grave.

Amen

(c) Bud Evans, Feb 2009

Supporters of Gays in Military Urge Obama to Move Quickly

2009-02-05T06:34:00.007-07:00

By 365gay Newscenter Staff02.04.2009 2:07pm EST

(Washington) Supporters of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” are calling on President Obama to stop dragging his feet in ending the ban on gays serving openly in the military.

President has said that he supports repeal of the ban, but reports indicate he has called for a study that could take up to a year to determine the effect of allowing gays to serve.

“Let’s be clear: A commission or a study group is not about change. That’s business as usual. We do not need another report to tell us what we already know and what earlier reports have long since concluded: the sexual orientation of a service member is irrelevant. What is relevant is how well he or she does the job,” said Aubrey Sarvis, the Executive Director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network on the SLDN Blog.
A retired Brigadier General for the U.S. Marine Corps who already has studied the effect of ending DADT agrees.

“There’s been enough studying throughout the years,” said General Hugh Aitken. “Creating a new study will not change the facts.”

....For the rest of the article, visit 365gay.com and click on this link below:

http://www.365gay.com/news/supporters-of-gays-in-military-urge-obama-to-move-quickly/

**************************************************

MY TAKE ON IT
by Bud Evans

If White America can get over its prejudices and elect a Black man president, then heterosexual America can get over its ignorant stereotypes and acknowledge that there are already tens of thousands of brave Gay sailors, airmen, soldiers and marines in Arlington National Cemetery who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this ungrateful and undeserving nation.

It is far past time to no more serve in silence in order to preserve and to protect, with one’s life and limb, the rights and freedoms of others while being denied the most basic freedom of all -- the right to simply be who one is; without intimidation or oppression.

How pathetic that someone like Obama, who has become the beneficiary of a nation that protects all others, except for members of the GLBT community, from invidious discrimination, is so slow to show moral outrage towards the inhumane treatment of this last minority which is still denied the full benefit of American citizenship.

Shame on Obama; shame on Congress and shame on America. This is not a country of free men and women; this is a country of bigots, hypocrites, and oppressors. This is not a country of religious freedom, this is a country where religion has become the whore of politics and visa versa. This is not a country that values wisdom and peace, this is country that makes a virtue out of ignorance and still makes war a rite of passage into manhood and dominance.

There may still be hope that America can live up to her high sounding ideals and her overwrought platitudes of Liberty and Justice for All. But for more than two hundred years her people have been a dismal failure at achieving those goals except through either violent upheaval or by excruciatingly slow increments -- such as, the civil war and the civil rights movement in the US.

You’d think that America would have had plenty of time to learn to believe in its own self-aggrandizing rhetoric of egalitarianism by now. The GLBT community is the most diverse minority which is represented in every race, religion, social status and ethnicity in America. Without remedying the injustices which are incessantly heaped upon our community each and every day, this America, this self-appointed bastion of liberty; this guardian of democracy’s eternal promise rings increasingly hollow.

Its far past time for the not-so-United States of America to either put up or shut up!

(C) Bud Evans, Feb. 2009
http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com

Below are a few examples I compiled (along with my Agnostic commentary) as to why we should all take the Bible literally.

2009-01-24T04:25:00.001-07:00

THESE ARE ALL ACTUAL BIBLE VERSES (well, the first part anyway):

______Greet one another with a holy kiss. (1 Corinthians 16:20)

Especially Catholic Priests when greeting Altar Boys.

______Women should remain silent in the churches. (1 Corinthians 14:34)

Yeah, because men are so much more rational when it comes to expounding on superstitious nonsense.

______Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable. (Leviticus 18:22)

I don’t…I lie with a man as one lies with a man. Try it sometime. Oooo, baby!! That’s delectable.

______Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material. (Leviticus 19:19)

We are all Doomed!!!!

______If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl’s father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

Wow! A hefty fine and a shotgun wedding for rape. What kind psychopaths wrote this holy crap? …Oh, I’m sorry, “uneducated straight men” -- of course. The reason why those same poisonous fairytales persist today across the globe. Go figure!

______Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. (Genesis 9:6)

Watch out war-mongers -- it’s not good for the “image“. Last time I looked in the mirror, God looked like he was getting fat. I need to go on a diet.

______Sell your possessions and give to the poor. (Luke 12:33)

You hear that Republicans, and especially Pat Robertson; Dr. James C. Dobson (from Focus on the Phony), and all of you other sinfully rich bitches? Cough it up, Paris and Britney! Now!!!

______Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work (Exodus 20:9-10)

So close down all of those heathen hospitals; immoral police precincts and blasphemous fire departments on Sunday immediately you “disrespecting the Sabbath Day” sinners!

_____If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head (1 Corinthians 11:6-7)

Wow! That must be confusing to Orthodox Jewish people and cowboys -- but understandable for nuns.

______If a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him (1 Corinthians 11:14)

Uh…I wonder if Jesus read this one? Maybe his hair just looks longer in those pictures. And what about Samson? In the Old Testament, it was a sin to cut your hair. I'm confused.

______If you are married -- do not seek a divorce. (1 Corinthians 7:27)

John McCain, shame on you! Well, actually fifty percent of you other formerly married heterosexuals out there too -- shame on all of you! Yes, you're a testament to the sanctity of marriage everywhere. Carry on!

______Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. (Matthew 5:42)

Hmmmm…the US Treasury‘s bailout of Wall Street?

______Give beer to those who are perishing, wine to those who are in anguish; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. (Proverbs 31:6-7)

Ok, let me get this right. That’s Budweiser to nursing homes and Chardonnay for the rest of us. Works for me!

______Do not put tattoo marks on yourselves. (Leviticus 19:28)

Ouch! Again, millions are doomed! :

______A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this. (Deuteronomy 22:4-5)

Well, considering how everybody wore dresses back in the day when this was written, I am confused again. Are bathrobes ok?:

______I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes (1 Timothy 2:8-9)

All of the Fundies; the hair saloons, Tivol’s, and Cher won’t like this one.

______Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh (1 Peter 2:18)

This used to be the motto for KKK. But I think most people today believe that it should only apply to the GLBT community in the modern age -- seeing how America is more civilized nowadays.

______As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Ephesians 5:24)

This one is not too popular with N.O.W. (National Organization for Women). I wonder why?

Well, there you have it. The Bible is the “literal” word of God. The above are just a few examples of those asinine tidbits. It is amazing that the misogynistic, racist, homophobic, misanthropic, chauvinistic, tribalistic, fashion police who concocted that odious Bronze Age alternative to Miss Manners still have fans. Will wonders never cease? It’s a anachronistic testimony to the persistence of ignorance. Sure there are a few good pearls of wisdom (although women can’t wear them), but, in reality, the unHoly Bible is truly in dire need of a “do over“.

© Bud Evans, 2008

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com

Bishop Robinson's Untelevised Pre-Inaugural Presidential Invocation

2009-01-19T04:31:00.002-07:00

The Bishop Robinson Pre-Inaugural Video That HBO and The Obama Team Didn't Want You To See...

2009-01-19T03:23:00.004-07:00

The inspirational invocation by Bishop Robinson was shamefully cut out of the televised broadcast of the pre-inaugural events Sunday Jan 19, 2009 by HBO which the Obama Team gave exclusive rights to present. Shame on HBO and Shame on Obama's henchmen for excluding it!

Attribution for this video, as well as its original site, can be found at the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWWAnitUCw4

The Case of the Disappearing Bishop

2009-01-19T02:16:00.009-07:00

Openly Gay Anglican Bishop Robinson Was Made to Disappear by HBO in Its Cable Broadcast of the Pre-Inaugural Events Sunday Jan. 18th, 2009.

The Bishop, generally understood to have been an olive branch extended to the GLBT community in wake of the Rev. Warren debacle, was unceremoniously cut out of the televised event.

The Obama Team, Which Sold Exclusive Coverage to the Cable Network, Claims Ignorance of this Bitch Slap to the Collective Face of Millions of GLBT America Citizens

Also, as it just so happened, while other entertainers were announced and/or identified at the ceremonies, The Gay Men's Choir was not introduced on HBO.

Could it be just another, not so subtle, "inadvertent" occurrence of "accidentally" imposed invisibility on the GLBT community?

Apparently, this is the new Obama GLBT policy of "inclusion" in collaboration with the Corporate Media -- just make them disappear.

Check out the full story here:

http://www.miketidmus.com/blog/2009/01/18/the-incredible-disappearing-bishop/

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

UPDATE: Very few major news-outlets reported on this event either, because Brittany Spears was spotted getting out of her car not wearing underwear again.

Meanwhile, HBO is trying desperately to deny rumors that Gay writers, directors and actors are responsible for their most successful cable TV series, past and present, (i.e. True Blood, Six Feet Under, etc.). It seems that a rebellion by the GLBT slaves on the Entertainment Plantation has been averted. Corporate Media GLBT blackout has restored invisibility regarding the insurrectionists. The Job security weapon was efficiently used for GLBT crowd control.

Now for the weather report:

The political forecast for incoming President Obama: Sunny and Status Quo with intermitted Ass-kissing; precipitated by White Guilt.

And for the GLBT community: Cloudy with continuing irrelevancy.

…That is all -- for now.

~ Bud Evans

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com

Of Bishops and Penguins & Cannibals and Kings...These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

2009-01-13T04:30:00.005-07:00

(photo attribution: http://www.peacockshock.com/index.html )

Gay bishop to kick off Inauguration events

By 365gay Newscenter Staff01.12.2009 9:48am EST
(Washington) Gene Robinson, the Episcopal church’s first gay bishop, will deliver the invocation at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, January 18 - the formal kickoff leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Obama.

For the entire article go to: http://www.365gay.com/news/gay-bishop-to-kick-off-inauguration-events/

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

MY TAKE ON IT ... by Bud Evans

NEWSFLASH -- Just in… it seems that Roy and Silo, the two Gay chinstrap penguins from the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan are to be reunited and flown to the South Pole after officials on the Obama transition team gave them permission to hold a pre-inaugural ceremony and prayer for Obama in Antarctica.

These Gay love birds have been carefully chosen to be joint Masters of Ceremony at this glorious celebration commemorating our new Fuhrer. And like Bishop Robinson‘s egg-hunt at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, this event will also be held several days before the “real” inauguration, and far enough away, so as not to generate too much press attention and stress for the incoming Obama administration.

The theme of this occasion, as well as the Ball following it (which was generously arranged by the HRC at the South Pole) will be titled: “Out of Sight; Out of Mind In Our New Obama Nation”.

Rainbow-colored leg-warmers and sequined purple parkas are being furnished, free of charge, by Uncle Tom’s Fashion Wear; while the US Military has volunteered to fly in and to air-drop guests at the event (parachutes, of course, are optional).

Entertainment will be provided by Ellen DeGeneres doing her famous “Step ‘em, Fetch it” dance routine to be taped and telecasted later for her post-menopausal hetero plantation mamas; while music will be furnished by The Mormon Tabernacle Choir which will be handing out magic underwear and free “sexual re-orientation” tickets to heaven after the event.

Finally, refreshments will consist of good old fashion Jim Jones Kool-Aid -- complements of both the Democratic and Republican Members of the House and the Senate.

A great time is expected to be had by all.

(End of Update)

…Signing off…

… your reporter for "The Rainfish Chronicles" …on Jan 2009

~ Bud Evans

http://rainfish2000.blogspot.com

Seattle Gay Bars Threatened with Ricin Attacks

2009-01-08T05:19:00.007-07:00

By 365gay Newscenter Staff
01.07.2009 9:39am EST

(Seattle, Washington) Seattle police say they are taking seriously threats of ricin attacks on 11 gay bars in the city.

The threats were made in letters received by the bars on Tuesday and have been turned over to police. Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger received a 12th letter saying it should be “prepared to announce the deaths of approximately 55 individuals.”

Seattle police forensics investigators are examining the letters and the FBI and Homeland Security have been notified.

...for the entire story go to: http://www.365gay.com/news/seattle-gay-bars-threatened-with-ricin-attacks/

**********COMMENTARY BELOW***********

MY TAKE ON IT ...by Bud Evans

Maybe Obama will give them a place at the inaugural table. After all, our next Bigot-in-Chief is the "inclusive" one. His chum, the arch-scumbag Rick Warren and his ilk, would like nothing more than to destroy us too by reducing us to sub-human trash which they can spit on and kick in the guts with impunity. Terrorism comes in many forms.

It seems to me, that to murder another person's spirit; to attack another person's family for simply existing, and to destroy their security and their freedom is a slower and more painful death than many other kinds of terrorist attacks. But that is the perpetual state of our existence in the USA. We, the GLBT community, have been under unrelenting terrorist attacks for nearly the last four hundred years in this country -- from colonial days to the present.

There has never been a shortage of people in the US who desire to destroy GLBT citizens. Some want to do it quickly with direct violence against one or a few of us at a time. While others, like Warren and millions of other assassins like him, exploit mindless fears and then pervert the law into their weapons of mass destruction -- thereby reaping a higher body count of ruined lives.

Who is really more dangerous?

Sadly, I don't think the so-called “news” media could give a crap either. At the most, the coverage of the mass murder of gays might just receive perhaps a few words in the moving scroll at the bottom of the tv screen during a newscast.

The captions might read:

"Dozens of homosexuals die in ricin attack…FBI may investigate…Congress to look into deaths perhaps next term after addressing the Economy... (JUST IN)... Brittany Spears accidentally suffocates pet poodle in handbag…Congress to hold hearings on Animal Abuse…New laws are expected to require breathing holes in large purses for pets; millions nationwide voice their concern...(Update)... Another twelve die in ricin attack in homosexual bars; FBI now says it is a local matter…With no federal Hate Crime law protecting homosexuals, Congress says its hands are tied...(Update)… Due to a flood of public outrage, Congress meets in emergency session and passes new laws to require breathing holes in large handbags for small pets…”

It is nothing to joke about, but that is exactly how most people in America treat our lives -- either as a big joke or some dangerous vermin infestation to be stomped out. But I believe the third kind of reaction to us is even more pernicious -- that is, Obama’s attitude: “Ignore them and maybe they will just go away.”

…You get the picture.

(C) Bud Evans - Jan 2008

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, Obama’s so-called Old Lion and Champion of Civil Rights, Exposed as a Jim Crow-style Segregationist in His Views on Gays

2008-12-30T05:48:00.006-07:00

by Bud Evans

Segregationist Rev. Lowery, the so-called liberal civil rights champion Obama picked to counter-balance rabid homophobe Rick Warren at Obama’s inauguration in Jan. 2009, stated the following bit of disgusting homophobic equivocation:

"I've never said I support gay marriage," he added. "I support gay rights, and I support civil unions. Like a whole lot of people, I have some difficulty with the term 'gay marriage' because...deeply rooted in my heart and mind, marriage is associated with 'man and woman.' So I have a little cultural shock with that, but I certainly support civil unions, and that gay partners ought to have all the rights that any other citizens have in this country."

Hmmmm…well shouldn’t “…all the rights that any other citizens have in this country..." also include the right to marry the adult, non-related person you love (regardless of gender) under the same existing set of rules relating to monogamous marriage which is, with unjustifiable bias, currently only offered to heterosexuals in America?

If not….uh, ok, then it would be alright for a like-minded bigot, similar to Rev. Lowry, in the form of a white person, who might possibly suffer “cultural shock”, to advocate that interracial couples are only entitled to an interracial Civil Union because same-race marriages have been “deeply rooted in (their) heart and mind“, and that marriage has been associated (for centuries in America) with white men and white women in holy matrimony only; not even allowing for same-race, African American marriages before the Civil War.

Furthermore, America has certainly never been totally accepting of interracial marriages -- even after an “activist“ Supreme Court in 1967 forced interracial marriage (Loving -vs.- Virginia) upon the entire nation by its decision which overruled “the will of the people” in many states. According to Gallop polls taken during the 1960’s over ninety percent of Americans (even a majority of Black people) did not approve of interracial marriage. So much for the “will of the people”, eh?

Yes, Rev. Lowery, you are the same kind of bigot that is described in the passages above. The sad fact is that you are comfortable with being a bigot now when your own community is are no longer at risk of being legally discriminated against. That says a lot about the hypocrisy of referring to you as a “Lion of the Civil Right Movement” when you are now an outspoken proponent of the imposition of “Jim Crow” segregationist laws being forced upon same-sex couples throughout America.

Have you no shame, Reverend Joseph Lowery? In your mind, civil rights and equality of American citizenship really just depends on whose ox is being gored. In other words, there are limits to your self-serving concept of Liberty and Justice for All. For you, “ALL” just means Black people. The worst kind of bigot is the kind who tries to pretend they are not one. Not only are they vile bigots but they are sociopathic liars as well. Rev. Joseph Lowery is both.

At least arch-homophobe Rick Warren was honest and upfront about his immoral and disgusting homophobia. But beware the wolves in sheep’s clothes like Rev. Lowery and Barack Obama; they are they most dangerous kind of bigots. They are more successful at convincing others, even our own brothers and sisters in the GLBT community, that we should be willing to sacrifice our own freedom (something they would never do) and that we should accept that being something less that fully equal is in everyone’s best interest and it is good for America and the last option left open to us.

Barack Obama and his ilk are not liberals nor are they progressives; they are not true believers in the US Constitution nor the Bill of Rights; they are toxic to anything that upsets the status quo -- now that Obama is offically an accepted part of it. So, beware the poison that kills slowly for it is the cruelest poison of all. Obama and Lowery want us to drink freely of that poison. Don’t do it! Resist tyranny at all cost, even when it offers you its hand in friendship -- because it still holds a knife behind its back.

Early Christian Same-Sex Saints and Lovers

2008-12-27T02:10:00.002-07:00

English: Saints Sergius and Bacchus. 7th Century icon. Officers of the Roman Army in Syria who were tortured to death for their refusal to worship Roman gods.

Bacchus is thought to have died from severe torture while Sergius survived the initial torture to be beheaded. They are the protectors of the Byzantine Army with a feast day of October 7th.

Yale historian John Boswell considers the saints to be an example of an early Christian same-sex union reflective of tolerant early Christians attitudes toward homosexuality based on this icon depecting what some claim is a religious wedding with Jesus as best man and still surviving writings

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sergebac7thcentury.jpg

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum: Over Four Thousand Year Old Example of Same-Sex Lovers

2008-12-27T01:41:00.005-07:00

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum were ancient Egyptian royal servants. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Niuserre during the Fifth Dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs, circa 2400 B.C., and are listed as "royal confidants" in their joint tomb. They are speculated to be the first recorded same-sex couple in history.

The tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum was discovered by Egyptologist Ahmed Moussa in the necropolis at Saqqara, Egypt in 1964, during the excavation of the causeway for the pyramid of King Unas. It is the only tomb in the necropolis where men are displayed embracing and holding hands. In addition, the men's chosen names form a linguistic reference to their closeness:

Niankhkhnum means "joined to life" and Khnumhotep means "joined to 'the blessed state of the dead'" and together the names can be translated as "joined in life and joined in death".

In a banquet scene, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are entertained by dancers, clappers, musicians and singers; in another, they oversee their funeral preparations. In the most striking portrayal, the two embrace, noses touching, in the most intimate pose allowed by canonical Egyptian art, surrounded by what would appear to be their heirs.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khnumhotep_%26_Niankhkhnum

Tammy Balwin and Melissa Etheridge Put On Their Rat Suits and Join Pied Piper Obama in the Dance Down to the Waterfront

2008-12-24T08:45:00.007-07:00

by Bud Evans

So, Congresswoman Tammy Balwin follows the gay lemmings in their headlong march off the clift at Obama’s inauguration. How many clowns with painted smiles does it take to make a circus? You wipe the faces clean and you’ll see a lot of sad faces underneath the makeup. So why participate in this farce? Gay Pride has become an oxymoron thanks to the feckless “leadership” in our community.

I wonder just how many other "Step 'em, Fetch 'its" and “Gay Uncle Toms” the Obama administration will put on parade at his “Coronation” in order to distract the media from Obama’s real agenda of political castration and marginalization of all GLBT people? Nice going Balwin, Etheridge, HRC, as well as a hardy thumbs-down to most of the gay political lemmings during the campaign season, along with as our so-called “liberal” straight allies at the Daily KOS, who told us to not make waves and stop being so “uppity“.

Just be patient, they cooed like doves and then cajoled liked annoyed step parents. Just wait for the great unveiling of the new age of Enlightenment in America and coming of the new Messiah -- that unflappable beacon of hope and equality for all -- Barack Obama. Yes, this “savior” who telegraphed very clearly, very early on -- via his unapologetic associations with rabid homophobes in the evangelical community -- that he was no true friend to GLBT people. Yes, be patient and stay out of the way before you fools realize that you been had!

Great job! We really know how to pick ‘em. Don’t we? Well, some of us anyway. I didn’t vote for this charlatan and neither did my partner and millions of others in the GLBT community who refused to drink the Kool-Aid. And because of that, we were reviled and accused of being stealth Log Cabin Republicans intruding on 365gay.com and other gay media sites as agents of the devil. We were denounced as assassins bent on sabotaging the Democrats in 2008 elections.

Does the old saying “Don’t kill the messenger” ring a bell for anyone out there anymore? And yet now you know what you didn’t want to hear: Barack Obama is an unprincipled jerk. You didn’t just elect a new president, you elected someone who has less class and finesse than Bill Clinton had in regards to the GLBT community -- and that takes of lot of doing.

So, congratulations to all.

Those of us who were rebuked, by our own kind, only tried to hold these politicians’ feet to the fire and to make them fess up, in concise language, to exactly what their agenda was regarding the GLBT community. Instead, for that, we are lambasted by the vicious, scared rabbits in the GLBT community and by our not-so “liberal” Straight so-called allies who threatened to re-appraise their commitment to the GLBT rights if we did not keep quiet.

No one (but a few of us) bothered to look past the hoop-la and to really examine this guy. When it was revealed how he showed nothing but total callous disregard for the GLBT community by selecting known homophobes to spearhead his so-called “Faith and Values Tour” in the South -- some of us looked the other way. When his own words, opposing same-sex marriage equality, were recorded and sent out to millions of homes in California via “robo-calls” by proponents of Prop 8, did Obama counter with a Public Service Announcement explaining his token opposition to Prop 8? Did we demand loudly enough that he denounce the use of his own words, which were exploited by the purveyors of hate in California to help justify the codification of discrimination in the state constitution? Did we threaten to withhold our votes if he did not address our concerns -- like any other self-respecting minority group would? The answer is NO.

Obama sees the GLBT community as useful fools during an election and a political liability after an election -- just as most Democrats do.

So many people thought that because Obama was Black (well, half Black) that he would automatically be empathic to our concerns. How silly was that? Just because the second to the last kid in line in gym class got chosen to play in the game, it doesn’t mean he has any obligation to see that you are picked too. He’s just glad he isn’t last anymore. If nothing, that is so true of the Black community nowadays as evidenced by the widespread homophobia in it. And Obama, if nothing else, is sadly emblematic of that reality.

But now, too late, comes the inconsolable wails of betrayal from the GLBT community who asked for so little and then got exactly that they asked for. Here now are the lamentations and the shrieks of a cockled lover who is suddenly forced to admit to himself, something which he always suspected, that his mate is a faithless whore.

And you didn’t see it coming?

President Obama: The Proud Segregationist to Take Office in the Upcoming Anniversary of Brown -v- Topeka Board of Education

2008-12-22T07:33:00.008-07:00

by Bud Evans (Dec 22, 2008)

RODNEY MORE (from 365Gay.com) wrote: "Obama is either A.) politically retarded thinking he could win the votes of the religious right or B.) just as homophobic as Warren or C.) both."

It's "C". And yes, Rodney, I too nearly lost a good friend as well who at first saw Obama as a fraud, but then jumped onboard the bandwagon out of fear that the Repugnant-cans might win again. I sympathize with those who believed that we were just given a "Sophie's Choice". The old "Lesser of two Evils" cliché.

On a related note, I defy any person of color, who voted with the 70% of their ilk to deny us our equality, and then who will, not doubt, join the predictable choirs, whining "activist judges" in denouncing the California Supreme Court, when/if they strike down Prop 8 to remember what Civil Rights Anniversary it is.

The irony of this coming year is that it is the fiftieth anniversary of Brown -versus- Topeka Board of Education and the US Supreme Court decision which desegregated public schools. It could also be a wonderful landmark year for the GLBT community if Prop 8 in California is overturned on this historical anniversary.

Upon another ironic (albeit both forward and backwards stepping) milestone, it is also worth noting that we just elected a pro-segregationist Black man as President of the “not-so” United States.

Still, I have every hope that eventually common sense and decency will prevail. I sincerely believe that we are on the winning side of history. Regretfully, so many of our fellow travelers have forgotten that we are still forced to endure many of the same injustices from which they, and their children, have since been liberated -- and with our support when they most desperately needed it. So now where is their support?

Instead, they who once were persecuted now join hand-in-hand with the persecutors. How utterly shameful. History will remember that as well. That is their shameful contribution to the continuing legacy of liberation whose fruits they once voraciously reaped, but in returned, they now selfishly deny to others who are still starving for freedom.

Moral reciprocity is something that should be expected and it should have been forthcoming, but the Black Community’s lack of empathy towards the suffering of another oppressed minority says lot about the collective morality, or lack there of, by a formerly subjugated group in our society.

Still, kudos for Jerry Brown. It is refreshing to see allies who have nothing to gain from our struggle other than the gratification of being part of an ongoing effort to uphold the concept of equal justice for all. Unlike Obama, Attorney General Brown is not an equivocator on human rights. He does not weigh on the Scale of Justice his own political ambitions balanced against the equal rights of his fellow citizens.

Truly Jerry Brown is a not only a great American, but also an ethically superior person compared to our soon to be President.

~ Bud Evans

http://www.365gay.com/news/ag-calls-for-rejection-of-prop-8/

Proposition 8: The Musical

2008-12-05T00:12:00.001-07:00

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

2008 Hearings on Capital Hill Concerning the Repeal of the Odious DADT

2008-11-17T23:25:00.001-07:00

REFUSE TO HATE! -- please watch the video below...

2008-11-12T15:09:00.004-07:00

Refuse to Hate from Refuse to Hate on Vimeo.

The Once Persecuted Now Become the Persecutors

2008-11-05T13:19:00.017-07:00

Proposition 8 robs members of the GLBT community of their Constitutionally protected right to marry one another. Racial minorities flocked to the polls on Nov. 4th, 2008 to vote for freedom and representation for themselves while simultaneously voting against the basic freedoms of another minority group. The stench of hypocrisy in the African and Latino American Community is staggering.

I guess we now know who are friends are.

"Hope and Change you can believe in," Barrack Obama claims.

(uh, that is, unless you happen to belong to the 30 million plus GLBT community in America)

And thanks to Obama's lack of support and the overwhelming bigotry united against us, formerly presecuted racial minorities can now rejoice in their new official role as persecutors and bigots themselves.

...Pathetic.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

CNN Exit polls:·

A staggering 75% of black women voted YES on Prop 8.
54% of Latino men voted YES, and 52% of Latino women voted YES on Prop 8.

Collectively, 70% of Blacks (Male and Female) voted YES on Prop 8 - the largest anti-gay minority voting block. MORE than any other racial minority.

A slim majority of Whites, 51% voted NO Prop 8.

61% of young people (18-24) voted NO Prop 8.

59% of 25-29 year olds voted NO Prop 8.
.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1
Reply

Truth is our Courage; Love is our Strength -- We Shall Prevail

2008-11-05T05:09:00.007-07:00

Well, it’s over for now. The 2008 Presidential Election is history. A benign bigot won who expected our unconditional support but who, in turn, would not even speak up for our right to be treated as equals and to protect the ones we love. By Obama’s incessant, and unethical, repetition of: “I believe marriage is between a Man and Woman” mantra he gave permission for voters in his own party of “Hope” and “Equality for All” to vote Yes for Obama and Yes for Proposition 8 in California.

YES WE CAN! …Indeed.

Thanks for your support, Obama. I guess we got what we deserved for being so naïve. We are politically expendable. Nothing is going to change that fact any time soon either. Fear drove most of us to support a candidate who does not support us. He does not view us as equals -- no matter what his finely tailored speeches profess to his immense tapestry comprising millions of disciples loosely stitched together by White guilt, Black disenfranchisement, Blue-Collar displacement and Gay desperation.

Yet how committed is Obama to some of his congregation? Imagine the mixed message Obama sent to the people of California -- especially in the minority community. After all, how many of them must have asked this to themselves, as they went to vote: “Well, Obama is against homosexuals getting married -- so why should we be for it. Obama is a fair and reasonable man, so it must be wrong. Like he said, in so many words, it’s not right for queers to get married. They can go sit at another table. The Marriage Table is reserved for “god’s chosen people” -- for heterosexuals only.” Or so says our great, fair-minded, emancipator of the downtrodden.

Yes, thanks for nothing, Obama. One word, just one word, just a simple: “Vote NO on Proposition 8” might have made the difference in many people’s minds - especially in the uneducated minority community where too many, unfortunately, relish the thought of the role of a formerly oppressed minority being reversed so that they can take out their angst by kicking another minority in the teeth.

Tragically, far too many in racial minority communities believe that the road to status quo membership in society is to find another minority to take their place at the bottom of the social heap. And the religious excuses they use are lame rationalization for their minority targeted, anti-social, bigoted, vile behavior. It is the same conduct attributed to how White Trash treated Blacks in the 1960s in the South. To paraphrase Shakespeare: The play is the same, only the actors have changed roles.

Barrack Obama made reference to us in the GLBT community during his acceptance speech Nov. 3, 2008, where we were sandwiched somewhere between Blacks and Whites and Disabled People. I listened to his soaring rhetoric with sadness -- erudite and inspiring, but still filled with empty, meaningless words that I doubt will ever find application.

Blacks, Latinos and other minorities don’t need him to fight for their civil rights anymore. The only minority left in the United States against whom it is legal to discriminate is the GLBT community. Like a good lawyer, Obama is both comprehensive and evasive in his message of “inclusion” involving us -- which usually ends with an segregationist scheme. Where is the unqualified outrage that Robert Kennedy showed when he spoke out against racism before his own tragic life was ended by an assassin’s bullet? Where is the uncompromising convictions of a Lyndon Johnson who knew the Democratic party would lose the South if he pushed for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act? But Johnson pushed for its passage anyway.

Blacks could just have been ignored before the riots of the 60s. They were not that essential in the political scheme of things on Capital Hill. But, at their own political risks, many White politicians put their political careers on the line to stand up for what was right. No minority in this country would ever achieve equality without a fair judiciary and without the political leadership that sets the wheels of justice in motion.

For those who say that only the courts shall be the final arbitrators of our fate, I say you are wrong. When Brown vs. The Topeka Board of Education was decided, the Eisenhower Republican administration was already on board to end segregation in America. When Loving vs. Virginia was decided, the political climate in Washington (after the 1964 Civil Rights Act) was already in favor of quietly removing the last racial barriers dividing the races in America. And even though the majority of Americans still were against interracial marriage, after the Supreme Court Ruling in 1967, there was no political upheaval over it.

So who now in American politics is our champion? Who now would risk any of their political capital for us? All we are told is to be quiet and to let things happen gradually behind the scenes. Our leaders in the GLBT community tells us to be patient. But “baby-steps” is quickly becoming the new definition for bullsh*t. Radical changes rarely happen in slow motion. Demands for equality are never heard if they are whispered.

Our own history should inform us. Where would the GLBT rights movement have been without Stonewall to get the ball rolling. Also contributory, the GLBT organization called ACT-UP was considered by many mainstream Gays as being too “militant” but they brought public awareness to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s in ways that the mainstream, Gay unfriendly, media would never willingly do. ACT-UP’s public acts of civil disobedience made people see the epidemic in ways that quiet talk behind closed doors could never accomplish.

We need a pro-active organization like that now to publicly demand our rights. Scream, shout, lie down in the streets and tie up traffic. Chain yourselves by the hundreds, all over the country, to the doors of Marriage License Bureaus if that’s what it takes to show we are serious. How can we expect other people to understand that Rights are not a gift to be bestowed or taken away by any benign or hostile majority. Equal Rights, just like every other American’s Rights, belong to us too at birth and cannot be taken away.

Now ask yourself this about our newly elected President, Ask yourself: if some other minority was the object of a hateful proposition that would have denied them equal citizenship, would Barrack Obama have been so silent on it? I think not. But see how easily he makes the transition from lofty platitudes and his glorious rhetoric of “inclusion” and “equality” to jumping aboard the hate-wagon rolling over our bodies and the bodies of those we love -- that is, if that wagon just happens to be moving in the direction he wants to go.

And please don’t dredge up that tired old chestnut of “well, if he openly supported our rights, he wouldn’t win”. The fact of the matter is that Obama didn’t have to lock himself into the indefensible position of opposing our equality while supporting an apartheid system of laws created just for our management. He did not have to ride the wave of bigotry to election.

When asked about marriage equality, he could have simply said that the question should be left up to the states (a position I don’t agree with any more than interracial marriage should be allowed to just remain a state issue), never-the-less, he could have just left it at that. But no, he had to be over-emphatic in his denunciation of same-sex marriage equality at every opportunity. What kind of “friend” to our community is that?

Obama took tens of millions of dollars from us for his campaign and tens of millions of votes from us to further his ambitions and then he turns his back on us to let the wolves come together to rip us to shreds -- many of whom were his strongest supporters, in his own race, who joined with the very same people they despised in the Republican party. All the while, Obama turned a blind eye to this blood-fest. Is that the kind of Messianic leader the GLBT community has been waiting for? If I where a religious person, I’d say it sounds more like the coming of the anti-Christ.

I did not vote for Obama. My Gay neighbor, at first, said that he would never vote for Obama either. But then, for whatever reason, he jumped on board the bandwagon. I suppose the high school football lure of being on the winning side is like an irresistible narcotic enticement too much for some people with weaker convictions to resist. It didn’t matter much though, because we both live in the Reddest of Red States --- Kansas. So, a symbolic protest vote against Obama would not have altered the election one bit.

I may have even held my nose and voted for Obama if I lived in a Swing State because the thought of a malignant bigot being elected over a benign bigot would be too great a risk even for me to imagine. It is so tragic that we only have such unhealthy choices to make. It is really time we start looking for a viable third party, at least in Congress to start -- the Presidency later.

If Joe Lieberman could control the agenda with just his one vote in the Senate, a third party of around ten percent of the members of Congress could give maximum representation to a minority such as ours. A third party would be a powerbroker and could caucus with either party for control of Congress and in setting political agenda on a quid pro quo basis. Coalitions could be formed and “orphan” legislation (that is legislation which no party wants to go out on the limb for alone) could be passed.

We owe nothing to the Democratic Party because they have (witness DOMA and DADT) given us nothing but betrayal or indifference in return. I really wanted to like Obama, but I don’t believe he has the courage to stick his neck out for us like President Johnson did for Black folk. I’d be pleasantly surprised if I am wrong. But I will not hold my breath until then.

(C) Bud Evans, 2008

WE MAY LOSE ANOTHER BATTLE, BECAUSE HATE IS STRONGER THAN LOVE IN AMERICA ...(an essay by Bud Evans)

2008-10-18T13:40:00.003-06:00

Don’t you think that the GLBT community should have prioritized early on and sent most of their tens of millions of campaign dollars to the “Stop Prop 8” drive instead of wasting their money on an ungrateful Senator “Marriage is between a Man and Woman” Obama? Barack had plenty of funds. So why did we give our money to someone who supports discrimination? That is like letting your own children go hungry while giving your family’s food away to the fat neighbors who could care less if you starved to death.

By the way, where is that simple ten second “Vote NO on Prop 8!” commercial from Obama? Don’t we get anything back for all our money and for our votes?

Once more, the scared rabbits in the GLBT community are again playing the role of useful fools. The marriage equality battle is a more immediate issue of concern to our community that the political ambitions of a passive/aggressive homophobe. Obama, as well as most of the Democrats, have already said they do not support our equality. I really wonder how many Black people would come out and vote for any candidate who insulted their dignity is such a manner?

But what do you expect. Far too many Gay men in America are still living out their adolescence well into their late twenties, thirties and even into their forties. Living “on the fly” (so to speak) in the sense of being in a state of perpetual arrested emotional development. Let’s face it, most barflies and party boys don’t give a crap about long term consequences.

Like overage teenagers, many males in the GLBT community just live for the thrill of the present and apathetically ignore the future. And by the time they become old enough to care about the same-sex family unit and its place in society, that is, if they’re not too burnt out or too jaded to maintain a relationship, it may be too late for them to significantly affect the political process.

Come on, why is there only ten thousand or so of us married in Massachusetts where it is still safe to marry? Jewish people only represent 3% of the population and I’d bet there are more than ten thousand married Jews in Massachusetts. But what do you expect? When people have a right, like the right to vote at age 18, people are sometimes just not mature enough to value that right. I hope our young people’s current apathy, concerning our civil rights, is just a generational issue that can be resolved and not something endemic in the gay community.

On the other end of the spectrum, the other half (primarily lesbians and more settled gay men) think that some messiah (like Obama or Hillary) is going to swoop down out of the heavens and rescue us from the slathering jaws of the psychotic bible-bigots. The cold hard fact is that any legislative action regarding federally mandating civil equality for the GLBT community ranks far, far below other more immediate issues; like, for example, funding a study of the mating habits of the black-footed ferret or a congressional proclamation commemorating National Artichoke Day.

And yet we still support people for president who tell us to our face that we are not as good as heterosexuals. That is why Proposition 8 will probably pass. It is because most of us are either apathetic hedonists, scared wimps or delusional masochists.

Can you imagine what would happen if there was an amendment like Proposition 8 that took away the rights of heterosexual Black people or Hispanics? The rioting, property damage, and the violence that would ensue would scare the holy crap out of the racists who would rue the day they ever considering such a god-awful thing.

Sadly, the peace-loving nature of the GLBT community is our most virtuous gift to human civilization and, at the same time, it is our weakest trait. We got to realize that we are on our own. Candidate Obama refuses to sacrifice the votes of a few bigots in return for our support; certainly a President Obama will not jeopardize his legislative agenda for our sake as well. No one on Capital Hill in Washington, D.C. will ever (now listen carefully)…no one on Capital Hill will ever stick their necks out for us without major concessions to bigots too. That is because the bigots are their people; we are not.

We need a third party who, with only ten percent of the votes in both houses of Congress, could be a major player in forwarding legislation. A third party could force both of the major parties to take up issues that they now believe they can safely ignore. A third party would be a major power-broker that both parties would have to appeal to in a close vote in Congress. And that gives a small third party huge bargaining power.

There is such a gigantic dung hill which The-Village-Idiot-in-Chief, G. W. Bush has left behind that I cannot see our concerns even being on the political radar for years to come -- if ever. Sure ENDA and Hate Crimes might come up for a vote and even pass, but with huge concessions given to bible-bigots which will take the teeth out of any meaningful legislation. DADT is doubtful while we are still involved in conflicts overseas. DOMA is far too politically risky.

So, I think we had better just resolve ourselves to fight our own battles -- primarily on the state judicial level in the few “liberal“ states that are left. We must focus all of our efforts on California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and a few others. In the future there might even be a few more free states where we can live. These will be our sanctuary states. If we lose them, if we lose that foothold, then we’ve lost all hope for generations to come.

© Bud Evans, Oct. 2008

(for another great take on things read:
Corvino: Scared in California
By John Corvino, columnist, 365gay.com at http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino-scared-in-california/

!!!! VOTE NO on PROPOSITION 8 in California !!!!

2008-10-14T22:44:00.005-06:00

The United States of America is no longer a Constitutional Republic -- it is quickly evolving into a dangerous reactionary horde -- America has become a “De-mob-cracy“.

So where is Obama? Many voters in California will vote for him, and then against us on Proposition 8 -- especially Black voters. Why is Obama giving them consent to do so by his silence on Proposition 8?

With all of the millions of dollars the GLBT community has sent to Obama and the tens of millions of our votes that he needs, why can’t we just get a simple ten second prime time TV commercial from him saying “Vote NO on propostion 8!”….well, is that too much to ask in return for our support?

Where is Obama when we need him? Why should we be there for him when he is nowhere to seen when we need him the most?

My spouse (of thirty-three years -- four of those legally married) and I will not be voting for Obama, and certainly not for McCain.

We will not be bullied into voting for one homophobe because the other homophobe may just want to ignore us altogether instead of segregating us from heterosexuals like the other bigot running for president wishes to do with us.

Sadly, too many in the GLBT community think that we are now left only with a “Sophie’s Choice”. Which child do we have to pick to send to its certain death -- should it be our self-respect or our misguided trust?

For my part, I choose neither. I am supporting a third party.

…Vote your conscience, not your fears.

~ Matthew Shepard ~

2008-10-12T00:04:00.000-06:00

Matthew Wayne Shepard (December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998)

2008-10-12T00:02:00.000-06:00

If there really were more genuine Christians in this country, Anti-Marriage Equality Amendments and homophobic laws would never appear on the ballot or get passed by legislatures.

Unfortunately, too many (but not all) Christians, for the most part, have become the Lions and We have become the meal.

Martyrs are very often sanctified and made into religious icons. I think the next great religion should be more "human centered" and people should be encouraged to wear jewelry pendants around their necks depicting Matthew Shepard's body crucified to a split-rail fence. It is time to put an actual human face on suffering and not substitute a very real and unacceptable tragedy with the unrealistic remoteness of an ancient myth.

If Jesus actually was a god, he would be so ashamed of the so-called "faithful". But who would want to believe in this magical being when his own followers prove that they do not believe in him by their acts of cruelty, bigotry, and selfish disregard for their fellow human?

The evil which people do, on lonely fields in Wyoming and at the ballot box, would make Christ weep.

Uganda to tighten law against homosexuality

2008-10-08T03:45:00.004-06:00

Uganda to tighten law against homosexuality
By 365gay Newscenter Staff10.06.2008 2:42pm EDT

…Anti-gay attacks are commonplace in Uganda but have increased since August when Ugandan LGBT rights groups for the first time held a public news conference to demand basic civil rights. Many of the participants wore disguises out of fears of government reprisals.

A week later supporters of a coalition of Christian and Muslim religious groups filled a downtown stadium demanding mass arrests of gays.

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission last year said that it had uncovered evidence that the Bush administration has funded groups in Uganda that actively promote violence and discrimination against lesbians and gay men.

Among those receiving money, according to US government records, is Uganda Muslim Tabliqh, and the Makerere University Community Church.

The church’s leader, Pastor Martin Ssempa, was a leading organizer of the anti-gay rally in Kampala.

Ssempa and his coalition, which includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, and Evangelicals, also have threatened the safety of Ugandan LGBT rights activists by posting their names, photos and addresses on a Web site.

(for the entire article go to 356gay.com and to this link:

http://www.365gay.com/news/uganda-to-tighten-law-against-homosexuality/

Some Gay People Have Actually Looked Behind the Curtain ...(an essay by Bud Evans)

2008-09-29T03:41:00.006-06:00

I am gratified to find so many soul-mates on 365Gay.com forums, such as: Simon Jones, Trace, Rodney Moore, Mr. Smith, and so many more of you who are coming out everyday to denounce this farce that was being epitomized as “our last hope“. Too many of us have been deluded into thinking that Obama will usher in a Golden Age of Freedom for our kind. We should not hold our breath on that presumption -- unless we are tired of breathing, that is.

As I said before, I have no doubt that our priority to him, and to a Democratic-controlled Congress, would rate somewhere far below that of protecting the Black-footed Ferret and passing a resolution to honor National Cabbage Day. If we don’t get a pro-labor, pro-civil rights third party firmly entrenched, in at least 10% of the seats in Congress, then the two party power structure will continue to cooperate in at least two things: (1) favor the current status quo, job-destroying, financial Darwinism of Wall Street, while (2) concurrently doing their best bit of “across the aisle cooperation” by resolutely ignoring the GLBT Community into complete irrelevancy.

So, I thank all of you who understand that by our not demanding our rights from those we have put into office -- we gain nothing. By eagerly settling for insulting proposals of social apartheid and segregationist legislative “final solutions” to our disenfranchisement -- we deserve the contempt we receive . I wish more people would understand that we are not traitors to our own kind, committing political “homo“-cide against the “Gay race“, just because we point out the dangerous hypocrisy of those who claim to be our “friends”. The “go along to get along” Uncle Tomishness, of what embarrassingly passes as leadership in our community, has just made enablers of us all. Don’t we get the kind of bad leadership we deserve, if we do not demand better?

I implore people not to send more money to HRC if they continue to just wine and dine greedy, power-hungry politicians who could care less about our rights. Just ask yourself this: when the day comes that we finally achieve our full civil rights in this hateful country, who will need the Democrats to advocate for GLBT causes? Don’t you think the DNC realizes that fear every time they hit us up for the tens of millions of dollars we splurge on their campaigns in return for half-hearted promises they have no intention of keeping?

For all the many years of our financial support and with our loyal vote, can you name one major piece of legislation, or even a small one; any pro-GLBT civil rights bill that has ever been passed when the Democrats were in power for the majority of the last fifty years? We got DADT and DOMA instead (under a Democratic President, I might add) which could not have passed without the consent of the Democrats and the full collaboration of the leadership of the Democratic party with the Republicans.

Too many Democratic politicians fear that if we get what we want, then we wont need them anymore. Our complete egalitarian assimilation into this society would spell doom for many who have exploited the GLBT community for so very long. It is not in their best interest to end our dependency on the Democratic Party. They fear that; I smell it on them. We are useful (and reliable) fools with the cash and the votes they need -- especially in a close election.

I agree with you “Simon Jones”, and with so many of you in the GLBT community at large who have seen through the Democrats’ cynical ploy. If only we truly had stronger leadership in our community we just might have a stronger, more united community. Where are our role models for the next generation of GLBT youth to emulate?

We really need committed people who could organize peaceful protests, and insist on our uncompromising demand for equality, while convincing the Circus Clowns and the Refugees from Marti Gras to leave their sequined jockstraps and pink fright wigs at home. This rebuke has nothing to do with the legitimate transgender community, which also desires to be taken seriously. It is about self-destructive exhibitionism which degrades us all as a legitimate minority group that is struggling for its freedom. Since when did we become the GLBT and E(xhibitionist) Community?

Perhaps if we would act more determined, and with true pride, about not settling for anything less than being treated with unequivocal respect for our human dignity and for our human rights; then perhaps, just perhaps, more people would believe we deserve our fair share of both.

© Bud Evans, 2008

The First Presidential Debate of 2008

2008-09-27T00:23:00.003-06:00

I think that the first McCain/Obama Presidential debate was generally a wash. But if I was forced to call a winner, I’d have to give it to McCain by a very slight edge. There were higher expectations for Obama and lower expectation for McCain. I fully expected McCain to fold when the debate started off on the Wall Street debacle -- but, he quickly rebounded on foreign policy.

So many people in the Obama camp might be disappointed though. Quite a few thought that McCain would have a "melt down". It didn't happen. Personally, I believe Obama looked more flustered. His looking down at his crib notes much too often made him appear a bit less prepared.

I’d give a few points to McCain for keeping his cool, and I’d subtract a few points from Obama for not being more emphatic in his response to the “surge” question and by his limp response to McCain‘s accusation that Obama lacked foreign policy experience.

I came away from the debate feeling that McCain would be less dangerous to the nation than the current POTUS IMBECILUS. Contrary wise, I was less impressed with Obama and his fast backtracking on nuclear energy and off-shore oil drilling. Predictably, Democrats lack the ability to completely committed to anything. Or anyone, in our case.

The next debate on Domestic Policies will be determinate. I’m sure McCain will be a complete Neanderthal on GBLT issues like ENDA, while toeing the fascist party line on DOMA and DADT. Whereas, I suspect Obama will give his usual canned, ambiguous, semi-committal, week-kneed response to any question involving the GLBT community -- and then pray the moderator will move on quickly past the topic.

Just like Obama will, no doubt, encourage the Congress to shelve all “controversial” legislation concerning us that would force him to take a principled stand on our behalf -- that is, if he makes it to the oval office. If you don’t believe me then just look at the anti-Gay “religious” leaders and former Reagan/Bush supporters he has put on his campaign. Oddly, not a high profile Gay or Lesbian pro-rights activist is anywhere in sight at the Obama camp. It makes you wonder what exactly has he promised these White “social conservatives” and Black Baptist homophobes on his so-called “Faith“ tours?

Submissive disparagement, not active optimism, seems to be the rule amongst too many GLBT Obama supporters today. I get really vexed when I see my GLBT friends’ trust taken for granted and then their hearts broken, time after time, by sociopathic, manipulative, self-serving politicians. Even one of our next door neighbors, who is a loyal Obama supporter, does not for a moment believe that Obama will lead in the least bit on our issues. He is resigned to that because he fears the alternative so much.

Yet, McCain and Obama both believe that we should not be married to our life-partners. The team of McCain and Obama both proudly proclaim that they will each defend and uphold heterosexual privilege over us. So, why bother? Do we trust Obama’s shallow, non-commitment to our “half equal” rights over McCain’s up-front opposition to us. These are our choices?

My gay neighbor’s spouse (yes, they were recently married in California this September) agrees with me. When he was accused of being “selfish” by his straight Democratic friends (because my friend did not defer his human rights to other “issues” facing the country) my, recently married, gay neighbor proposed the following tee-shirt slogan for the edification of all so-called “Liberal“, straight Obama supporters:

“Call Me Selfish Only If You Are Willing to Give Up Your Right to Marry the One You Love”

I guess it would have to be printed in small letters or on a really big tee shirt, but the message is powerful enough to make each of us question, in our own hearts, why must we have to choose from any of the above?

If there are no consequences for betraying us, then why should any politician ever take us seriously. If we cannot understand the political principle of “Quid Pro Quo”, and demand its application, then we have already betrayed the future of our own kind.

Sometimes you have to lose a battle in order to win the war. If that’s what is required for people to take us seriously, then we had better stop raising people up who are keeping us down. We don’t owe anybody our votes -- they work for us. Make them earn it.

I have reluctantly assumed the mantle of the Devil’s Advocate. In reality, I am a Registered Democrat. But, ultimately, the choice is yours. I grow weary of having to do the “I told you so” dance. I’d be more than glad to pass my dance-card on to somebody else. But, just in case, I’m going to dust off my best club-shoes -- that is, if Obama wins and follows the Democratic Party’s predictable patterns of political expediency, at our expense. I hope I’m wrong. For all our sake.

(C) Bud Evans, 2008

Photo attribution:

http://www.therandomforest.com/2008/04/27/3d-south-park-wallpapers/

Obama to Launch Another Faith Tour That Includes Rabid Anti-gay Supporter of Prop. 8 Which Would Ban Marriage Equality for Same-sex Couples in CA.

2008-09-26T04:53:00.001-06:00

Yep, Obama is fighting for our equality all right. In case you haven't heard the latest, Obama just invited the most rabid anti-marriage homophobic swine in California to join his new so-called "Faith and Values" tour on the West Coast.

According to the major GLBT publication, the Advocate:
“Sen. Barack Obama's campaign is reportedly launching a "Faith, Family, and Values Tour" next week in California that will include Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec as one of the campaign's surrogates.

Kmiec wrote an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle this summer in which he urged SUPPORT for passing California's marriage ban, Proposition 8.”

http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid61930.asp

(From the Sept. issue of the Advocate -- Check it out!)

Douglas Kmiec wrote, in his attack on marriage equality: “In a depopulating world, the claim that there is a universal right to marry regardless of gender becomes a frightening ally of a claimed universal right to access to genetically engineered children. People should reject this claim by returning traditional marriage to its rightful place."

This guy, Obama’s new friend, is a dangerous loon. He believes same-sex marriage will lead to the end of civilization because same-sex couples may someday make cloning more popular than the old fashion way of reproduction.

And “in a depopulating world”? What? Straights will always be fornicating like rabbits and keeping the population growing (unfortunately, with horrific consequences, for some third world countries with limited resources).

So again, I ask: what the F**k ???!!! Obama, oh my god! Not another anti-gay friend of yours. Are you a closeted basher for some reason? Are the rumors true. Is Obama just another self-loathing, "on the down-low", Donnie McClurkin? Why does he wear these bigots like a badge of honor around his neck? Or are they beards?

Well, we should all be worried. We should be worried about a guy running for president who brings into the fold some of our worst enemies. Apparently, the gay community’s objection to the last “Obama Gospel Tour”, which featured the “ex-homo” Donnie “Pray the Gay Away” McClurkin, made very little impact on Obama and his campaign organizers.

Now, Obama brings in the equivalent of an “anti-gay-nazi-hunter“, Arch-homophobe, Douglas Kmiec. This nutcase, and disciple of Clinton “Monica-gate” prosecutor Ken Starr, spews hateful nonsense about gay people in the future becoming Nazi-like human-cloners (shades of “The Boys from Brazil“ and Josef Mengele) who will be bent on destroying the entire human race by genetically engineering “designer gay children”. Straights will stop copulating and little gay Ken doll human replicants will party on until the last one leaves the planet and turns off the lights. Hence, the end of human life on Earth. Ta da!

What a way to go. Not with a bang…not with a whimper…but with a song in your heart dancing down the road to extinction.

Well, put me down for an advance order. I want a couple of “Brad Pitts” (I can de-straight him later) and maybe a few GQ models thrown in for good measure.

Furthermore, Prof. Kmiec claims:
“The push for artificial wombs and the genetic manipulation of intelligence already peppers scientific literature - a push that would no doubt grow, accommodating even the minimal same-sex desire for simulating natural child birth - claimed to be of interest for 20-30 percent of same-sex couples.”

….Yep, I always knew it. I can’t wait to get an artificial womb so that I can start destroying the the Earth with it. Oooooooo!!!! SCARY!!!!! Can I get tiny laser-guns shooting death rays implanted in my nipples too?

Oh, thank you, Barrack. Can we invite the KKK to your next rally? You don’t mind “diversity” in bringing hate-mongers into the fold when it comes to the GLBT community. So what about some fashionable sheet-wearing “good ol’ boy” democratic supporters (for diversity’s sake) in the White Supremacist movement to entertain everybody on the “Faith and Values Tour“? The burning crosses would brighten up the place.

So, Obama, please, tell me what is the difference?

Geez…what a thoughtless bastard! He really know how to pick his friends, doesn‘t he? ….At our expense, of course.

I sure am looking forward to Obama putting some of these very same crazies on the board of his new Commission on Civil Rights -- for the sake of diversity, that is.

I envision a “god squad” of Fundamentalist Pastors rounding us “sodomites” up (the marrying kind anyway); then holding us down, kicking and screaming, as Professor Kmiec removes our artificial wombs while Donnie McClurkin sings gospel hymns to “pray our gay away” as Barrack Obama holds our hands to comfort us, and tell us: “You asked too much.”

Ahhhh…good times. …I can’t wait!

Shouldn’t we be judged by the company we keep anymore? But maybe that doesn’t apply to Barrack Obama with his Anti-gay Cloning Gospel Tour.

WOW!!! ….Have we been had or what???!!!!

© Bud Evans, 2008

THE PLACE to get your very own "Sodom and Gomorrah" dinnerware.

2008-09-23T06:54:00.006-06:00

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Step on up and get your very own "Sodom and Gomorrah" dinnerware. Invite your favorite Gay and Lesbian couples over for a real Biblical dining experience, and then take a trip down memory lane with them.

Good times! ... Yes, good times indeed!

Ahhh...those were the days!!!

* (Pillar of Salt and Pepper shakers are extra)

Click below to check out the real thing...

http://www.replacements.com/webquote/CO_CCWMISPCRCH.htm

PS - Yep, I couldn't believe it either.

*Attribution:
ROYAL CORNWALL CREATION-CHARTER STOCK
AS OF 09/23/2008

Item#: 15401 --- Manufacturer Status: Discontinued Actual: 1977 - 1980
Pattern: CREATION-CHARTER, Plate [CO CCWMISPCRCH] Description: CREATION SCENES, BY YIANNIS KOUSTIS

From: Replacements, Ltd.

How Very Sad...If tears were made of fire, I'd be ashes.

2008-09-22T09:20:00.007-06:00

Saturday, August 06, 2005

Two Heads are Better Than One?

Photo Posted by Peter at 7:30 PM

Rainfish (aka Bud Evans) said...

If the photo is real, I feel sorrow; if the picture is a fake, I still feel sad because I know somebody's heart is breaking for a child, somewhere, who smiles blissfully while mono-cephaloids regard two eyes; two ears, and two gonads as better than one -- but an extra head is too much baggage for those who still insist that life must be pretty.

I'm grateful that my own grotesques reside on the other side of my eyeballs, of which I, normal at least on the outside, still have two, and that my pet gargoyles who constantly rearrange the furniture in my own dark cathedral, do not fly beyond these tunnels into the daylight to frighten children.

My conceit as a artist requires me to reconstruct that which I pull apart. Fragmentation is death; it is an uncompleted canvas. It’s a triptych with the middle piece missing. If I were the child with two heads, my soul would scream for the painter’s gesso to blank me out; roll me back, and rethink me to a new beginning.

God is an uncritical artist with not enough conceit to demand perfection; an idiot-savant who cannot even appreciate the beauty and the ugliness it creates.

So why two heads?

While unquestioned conformity is soul-death; involuntary non-conformity is a living horror. Why start life as a witless victim, when one should have their entire life to cultivate their own villains for different occasions; baked in life’s experience in different flavors suited for every passion’s taste. Why have them thrust upon you from the very beginning without a careful screening?

...Like the tax man.

Too bad a fetus can't demand an abortion.

~ Bud Evans

(Sorry, I do ramble on ... but then, that’s just me. Now about the photo... Well, personally, it‘s to the eye what dog crap is to the shoe. I couldn‘t wait to scrap it off my psyche. I‘m a fussy queen about stuff like that. But, I‘m certain my inner-gargoyles loved it. Thanks for sharing this horrific picture with my scarred mind.)

PS - I do love poetry. I’d like to ask one to marry me when I grow up someday, tho' I can’t pick just one. Is polygamy ok in that case? They all say to me, "Thanks for being you". ...How can you not love that?

PS/PS -- By the way, in case any of you haven't noticed, this is the address of the cyber-bar that I usually frequent. My ego occasionally hangs around it when it’s not lying in a puddle of its own Id. Be a pal and call me a taxi sometime when you think I’ve drunk enough of my own mind-numbing metaphors.

"Taxi!" "Taxi!"

...Cheers!

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Bud...

Category: My Poems/Meditations/Letters/"whatever"