Not Very Smart

If you really want to win an election, it doesn't make sense to piss off the women of this nation -- by taking positions that would be detrimental to their health, happiness, and incomes (and refuse to come down hard on fellow Republicans who would minimize the horror of rape). This is especially true if you have already angered minorities, young people, non-religious people, and the LGBT community. That's a sure-fire recipe for defeat.

Clinton Speaks Out On GLBT Rights

Yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an address at the United Nations offices in Geneva, Switzerland. The occasion was International Human Rights Day, and Clinton spoke to defend the rights of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered individuals all over the world. And since she spoke not as an individual, but as the Secretary of State of the United States, the views she expressed are the official policy of the Obama administration. Our government has lots of problems, and I detail many of them on this blog, but sometimes they get things exactly right -- and this is one of those times. I proudly bring you some of Secretary Clinton's powerful speech:

Heroism Under Fire

The two ladies pictured above are married. They are able to be married because Norway, where they live, doesn't have the same kind of societal hang-ups that exists in most of the United States. To many right-wingers in this country these women would be considered sinners, or maybe even criminals because of their lifestyle. But what they really are is heroes.

I don't call them heroes because they are lesbians -- that is merely their lifestyle. No, they are heroes because of the way they reacted to the massacre by right-wing christian fundamentalist Anders Breivik.

Hege Dalen and Toril Hansen were having dinner on the mainland, across from the ill-fated campsite on Utoya Island. When they heard the gunshots and screams coming from the island they did not run for cover -- they ran to help. They put there boat in the water and drove toward the island. It took them four trips because it was a small boat, but they were able to rescue 40 of the youngsters.

And they did it while under fire from the right-wing gunman. The numerous bullet holes in their boat prove that beyond any doubt. There was never any hope of saving everyone, and 69 people died in the massacre. But saving 40 people and ferrying them to safety was a remarkable achievement.

Most of us would like to think we would act just as heroically in such a situation, but the truth is that many would just run for cover. But these ladies didn't. They rose to the occasion. They are true heroes.

Denying The Journey Doesn't Help

It has been a long hard road in trying to get equal rights for all American citizens and the battle is not yet over -- especially for the gays and lesbians in this country. They are still discriminated against and denied the most basic of rights -- the right to marry the person they love. Fortunately, as recent polls show, this is slowly changing and the younger generation is not nearly as bigoted as us older folks. The future should be better than the past or the present.

One of the biggest battles has been over the causes of homosexuality. Most decent people, like myself, don't really care. All of us are individuals and all of us are different in our own way. Those differences should never be used as a reason to deny anyone their equal rights as an American.

Religious fundamentalists have said (and still say) that homosexuality is a choice and making that choice is a sin. Many have countered that there is no choice -- gays and lesbians are born to be what they are. I have tended to come down on the latter side.

But there is a new Houston blog that has had me thinking. It is Lesbians in My Soup, and the author has declared that just saying homosexuals are "born that way" tends to denigrate the journey that most of them have had to make in this society. It almost makes it a simple and painless process to be gay or lesbian, and that is far from the truth. I urge you to go read this young woman's thought-provoking post.

Our society puts pressure on everyone to fall in line and live up to traditional models of behavior from the time we are toddlers, including sexual models of behavior. Anyone who doesn't fit the traditional heterosexual behavior model is in for a lot of trouble -- whether they are born that way or not. Most of them are forced to make a long and sometimes very painful journey of self-discovery before developing into a happy and centered individual.

I think this is correct. Too often we use the term "born that way" to make it sound like gays and lesbians know who they are from birth, when in reality it takes a lot of soul-searching and pain before that realization is made for many (and our society doesn't help this search at all).

Are homosexuals "born that way"? Who cares? The important thing is to accept others as they are and not as who we want them to be -- and to recognize the journey they had to make to find themselves (no matter who they are). Life is not easy for anyone, and we should not be making it any harder for anyone else. That shows a flaw in our own character -- not theirs.

Children Of Lesbians Are Healthy & Happy

It is no secret that the right-wing christian (and muslim) fundamentalists have been waging a bigoted war against homosexuals.   Among the many untrue charges leveled against them is the argument that somehow a child would be harmed by being raised by lesbian or gay parents.   The fundies would like for Americans to think that the children would be abused, psychologically scarred or turn out to be  homosexuals because they were raised by parents who were lesbian or gay.

Of course any reasonable person would know these charges are ludicrous.   The most important things (and probably the only important things) about raising children is that they be shown love and given support and encouragement -- and it doesn't really matter whether the parents are heterosexual or homosexual.   It doesn't take any special intelligence to know a child would be better off in a loving homosexual home than a dysfunctional and/or abusive heterosexual home.

Now there is a study that backs up these common sense conclusions.   There is a scientific study done on the children of lesbian parents.   This is no fly-by-night study -- it was conducted over a 24 year period.   The name of the study is the U.S. National Longtitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS), and it was recently printed in the Archives of Sexual Behavior magazine.

What did the study show?   First of all, it showed a 0% incidence of  child abuse in the lesbian familes (over a 24 year period!).   That's right -- ZERO PERCENT (either physically or sexually abused).   Compare that to what adolescents in American families report -- 26% report physical abuse and 8.3% report sexual abuse.   One bigoted charge down the drain!

But what about the child's sexual preference?   Did living with a lesbian couple cause them to be homosexuals themselves?   No.   Only 2.8% of the children in the NLLFS study said they were either predominantly or exclusively homosexual.   Since most experts estimate that homosexuals make up around 10% of the population in general (and nearly all were raised by heterosexual parents), this seems to shoot down the other fundie argument.   Growing up with lesbian parents did not alter the sexual preference of the children (although it very probably created a better home life for the 2.8% who were born that way).

It is far more important for parents to be loving, accepting and encouraging than it is for them to be heterosexual.   It is time for the court system and society in general to accept that fact.   It is not just stupid, it borders on being abusive, to deny a child a loving home because the parents are lesbian or gay.

Lesbian Gangs And Pink Pistols

For a long time, I've known that Bill O'Reilly likes to play fast and loose with the truth. But it now seems like he's gone even further into his own imaginary world -- a world where truth has no place.

On his June 21st broadcast, O'Reilly brought on an "expert" to claim that lesbian gangs, many of them carrying pink-colored pistols, are terrorizing our country. The expert said these gangs are operating nation-wide, beating men, raping women and indoctrinating young children into the homosexual lifestyle. The expert claimed that there are 150 of these lesbian gangs in the Washington DC area alone.

Of course, these accusations are nothing but outrageous lies. The lies have already been exposed by many gay and feminist blogs, so I won't bore you with more details of O'Reilly's fantasy journey that night (if you haven't read of this, go to SPLC's excellent website).

I was interested in what kind of expert would go on nationwide television and spread such ridiculous lies. His name is Rod Wheeler (pictured above) and he claims to be an expert on crime and criminal justice issues. He has been a guest expert over 500 times on Fox, MSNBC and Court TV.

One would think he must have a pretty impressive resume to have been called upon that many times for his expertise, right? Well let's examine that resume for a moment and see just how much of a criminal justice expert he really is.

Turns out that he has only seven years experience as a police officer, and was suspended from the force for testing positive for marijuana (I knew he had to be smoking something to come up with such outrageous lies). Spending seven years as a police officer is not nearly enough to qualify anyone as an "expert" in crime and criminal justice issues.

Most of the rest of his career was spent in the security department of the McDonald's Corporation, protecting their hamburgers from terrorists. He claims to have identified 250 points where a Big Mac is vulnerable to terrorist attack during production. Who knew the terrorists were after second-rate hamburgers?

Wheeler currently works for the American Institute of Baking, where he identifies himself as a "food defense specialist". I guess that means he's now protecting our sweet rolls and muffins from the terrorists.

Wheeler is also a member of the Jericho City of Praise -- an ultra-fundamentalist church that is openly and rabidly anti-homosexual. This explains where his anti-gay attitude comes from.

Wheeler has not earned and does not deserve to be called an expert on crime and criminal justice issues. He is simply a poser with an agenda, who will say anything to get on TV.

I would say O'Reilly needs to be more careful about the "experts" he chooses, except I believe he was careful in his choice. He carefully chose the person who would tell him what he wanted to hear.

What an evil joke both O'Reilly and Wheeler are!