Scott Lively’s Delusions Continue

Feb2 by D Gregory Smith

Pastor(?) Scott Lively’s self-loathing-fueled rants against LGBT persons continues with him minimizing the role of hate in the murder of David Kato in Uganda and, more incredibly still, inflating the fears of God-fearing people with histrionic inducing rhetoric. To wit:

There is indeed evil in Uganda today, but it is not the reaction of Christian and Moslem citizens to the rape of their culture. It is the pink-gloved hand of western powers that are cutting the throat of Africa’s most God-fearing country, and one of the world‘s most promising Christian democracies.

…The murderers are the lavender Marxists, the now-global network of sexual revolutionaries bent on remaking the entire world in their own perverted image, whose juggernaut has toppled even once mighty Britain, crushing under their lavender boots after eight centuries the symbol of its Christian power: the Magna Charta, whose first principle had proclaimed “The English church must be free!” These revolutionists of Sodom, who march triumphantly through all the major cities of the western world to flaunt their defeat of moral law, and who hold both Hollywood and the heart of America’s president in their iron grip: These very same zealots have fixed their malevolent gaze on Christian Uganda.

Disgusting. He is a terrorist, plain and simple.
He is promoting terror and fear- and through it, violence in the name of the Gospel- and most of us know that the Jesus of scripture would never countenance this.

Hold your nose and read the rest here.
And then tell everyone you know about this ignorant bigot- who in my opinion is no different than any other radical fundamentalist advocating violence….

Oh, and Mr Lively- if you’re reading this, I have one thing to say to you: You have blood on your hands.

Update: Kathy Baldock’s response here.

When Is It Okay To Say “Nazi?”

Jan30 by D Gregory Smith

A couple of posts from the blogosphere seem ready to ask just that.

Kathy Baldock from Canyonwalker Connections continues to chronicle Scott Lively’s hate filled ravings- antics that have led to the murder of gentle-spirited David Kato in Uganda. Excerpt:

There has been much focus on Scott Lively again in the past day as well. For his involvement in the “Kill the Gays” Bill, read the following post. I wrote to Mr. Lively about a year ago and we have maintained a mostly respectful exchange over the months. I will not directly quote him; that is my part of the bargain for keeping this communication open.

Full article here

Michael Hamar posted a provocative article on Bilerico this morning entitled “65 Years After Auschwitz And The Christianists Have Learned Nothing.” Excerpt:

The hatred and malicious denigration of others can lead to shocking horrors, yet conservative Christians in the USA and their minions and hangers overseas (such as in Uganda) have apparently learned nothing from the nightmare of the Nazi regime and its deadly propaganda campaign against Jews. We hear much about supposedly “protecting marriage” from the Christian right, but their true agenda is denigrating LGBT citizens and keeping us a hated class of individuals.

Read it here. And I mean read it. Then add your voice to the conversation.

The Right To Kill

Jan19 by D Gregory Smith

Also published on Bilerico.com

I grew up on a ranch in Montana. I rode horses. I branded calves. I collected eggs, brought in lambs, moved irrigation pipe, milked cows, toted hay bales and yes, occasionally, I shot things.

Guns were part of our life- not an enormous part, but they were there. They were a tool-with very serious consequences, and I was taught to be responsible for those consequences.

My friends and I, like the kid in A Christmas Story, lusted after the Red Ryder BB gun. When we got them (mine arrived on my 12^th birthday- it wasn’t a Red Ryder, but it was a repeater!) we shot at targets- usually tin cans, sometimes at small animals- and, on a dare, the windows of an old barn outside town. On the ranch, we sometimes shot at coyotes and foxes to protect the lambs. My grandfather’s preferred method of livestock protection was a gas-powered “cannon” that would simply shoot off every 20 minutes- a relatively inexpensive (and effective) non-lethal noisemaker.

I, like every other kid my age, went to hunter’s safety classes in preparation for a hunting license and learned rifle use and safety. I went hunting and shot (and field dressed) a few deer in my time, experiencing the blood, the gore, and learning basic anatomy from the inside out. I really went to spend some quality time with my Dad. Just remembering that time outdoors with him brings a smile to my face.

But around age 16, I lost the appetite for it. I just couldn’t rationalize the necessity of shooting a beautiful animal when my survival didn’t (necessarily- it’s a macho thing) depend on it.

I think it started with an increasing awareness of violence in the world.

In 1981, we were worried about the Ayatollah Khomeini, the hostages in Iran, violence and hunger strikes in Northern Ireland, and war in El Salvador. There were assassination attempts on the President and the Pope. The attempt on Anwar Sadat succeeded. We wondered about baseball strikes, air traffic controller strikes, the first woman on the Supreme Court and “gay cancer”.

But most powerfully, I think, was being in Japan that year as an exchange student for the summer. It was watching the solemn commemoration services of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that got to me. Sure, we learned about the bombing in school, but they weren’t people to me then- they were savage enemies of democracy, hell-bent on our destruction. They deserved it. And besides, they were far away. What we did to them didn’t necessarily matter.

But it did.

I couldn’t shake the images I saw in Japan that day of burned, naked, terrified, fleeing human beings. I can still hear the bells ringing in otherwise quiet streets. I can clearly see the sadness on the beautiful faces of people I now knew and loved. I couldn’t reconcile the stunningly beautiful architecture, culture, spirituality and people I now knew firsthand with the “savage enemy” of my social studies and history classes.

I never picked up a gun after I returned from Japan. My Dad and my brother tried to get me to go hunting, but I couldn’t. Nor could I explain to them my suspicion that even the seemingly innocuous act of hunting for me seemed like a slippery slope into barbarism, whether of thinking or of acting. It doesn’t matter. Each one eventually leads to the other anyway.

There’s been a lot of rhetoric happening in the last weeks. Some of it has been noble, some of it savagely self-serving. What I find missing is the soul of the debate- something we seem to be missing every time we talk about this: What’s so important to human beings about protecting and enshrining our ability to kill?

It’s so important that we’ve perverted religion to support it, governments to turn a blind eye, and industry after industry is tied to it- and therefore, the rhetoric goes, is tied the heart and soul of America.

Horseshit.

The heart and soul of America is tied to freedom- and that includes the freedom to live a life without the threat of being shot by someone who simply thinks you should be shot. For any number of reasons. Because they have the power. And a gun.

People have lost their minds if they think their right to an AK47 is guaranteed in the constitution. They have gone insane if they believe that they need to have stockpiles of weapons in their homes against the advent of anarchy. They are crazy if they think that every one would be better protected by carrying a gun. But that’s the meme. That’s what all the hullabaloo is about. It’s about guaranteeing our right to kill.

I wonder if any of the people trumpeting unrestricted gun rights have ever seen the consequences of actually using a firearm- the blood, the pain, the terror. And not just the movies or television, but actually having blood on their hands. Actually seeing a dead or dying thing or person in front of them. If so, their voices may be credible. If not, then they need to shut the fuck up.

I also have to say I’m not alone. Look at the transformation of Jim Brady, the clarity of Virginia Tech survivor Colin Goddard to name two others….

I grew up in the West, but it’s no longer the Wild West of Billy the Kid and Matt Dillon, nor is it the friendly, peaceful, sensible West I remember from my childhood. It’s slowly becoming the crazy West of Ted Kaczynski, The Aryan Nations, Columbine, Oklahoma City, the NRA and FOX News.

Back when I was learning to handle a rifle in hunter’s safety class, a kid asked, “When are we going to learn about pistols?” One of the instructors said, “Son, handguns are for police and thugs and shooting vermin. If you want to be a cop, they’ll teach you all you need to know. If you need to shoot a coyote, use a rifle. And if you want to be a thug, you’ll have to learn it somewhere else.”

That’s what I miss- that being a thug used to be a bad thing.

The Storm Brewing In Uganda

Dec28 by D Gregory Smith

Excellent assessment of the gay panic in Uganda promulgated by Christianists. The obsessive passion which the U.S. right-wingnuts are fomenting here is inexcusable and distinctly anti-Christlike.

Kathy Baldock takes it apart here. Please read it.

Lettin’ in “the gays”

Dec21 by D Gregory Smith

The ban on allowing only certain people to serve without secrecy and shame in the United States Military has ended, giving all LGB (not T?) persons another venue in which to pursue their chosen career path with a semblance of integrity.

I have always had mixed feelings about the ban. On the one hand, having worked with a number of U.S. veterans, I think military culture often has a negative impact on individuals, especially when it comes to relating to civilian life. Life in the barracks or on active duty can be far removed from the reality of most Americans’ day-to-day lives. Some of my military friends say that is how it needs to be in order to combat the enemy. I’m not so sure. I do know that the culture offers very little support for soldiers re-entering civilian life, resuming relationships and entering the workforce. It’s even worse for those with PTSD.

On the other hand, I think everyone has the right to choose their own path to empowering themselves as human beings- sometimes this is the only (or at least glaring) option for those without other resources to gain a shot at higher education or skill training. So if someone wants to serve, being able to do so without shame or fear of discovery- at least officially, can only make the military better, and camaraderie more honest. And when official shaming ends, we move closer to full acceptance and integration into society- and further away from internalized homophobia and humiliation.

All good things.

And for those who think the president hasn’t done enough: I believe he and his administration are doing as much as they can- and carefully enough that the changes they do make will stand. Across the board, from Health and Human Services to the Justice Department to the FDA, changes that reflect good science and social practice are being carefully integrated into public policy- as are the diversity of the personnel involved (which include a large number of LGBT persons). That isn’t often remembered because it’s not sexy, sensational or scintillating. But it’s totally important to our well-being as a diversity-accepting country. It’s the Obama Long Game. And I’m a fan.

They haven’t lost me, because I know this would have never happened under President McCain.

Cowgirl catches extremist link

Dec16 by D Gregory Smith

Amazing story over on Montana Cowgirl about the link between right-wing extremists and Guy Fawkes ( remember V for Vendetta?).

Check it out here.

Oh, and read the comments, both here and there. Join in!

Journalism. ? !

Nov18 by D Gregory Smith

I’m with Wulfgar! This response by Keith Olbermann to Ted Koppel’s editorial in the Washington Post needs to be seen by as many people as possible:

No More Smear The Queer

Nov1 by D Gregory Smith

In a short note to me this weekend, my friend and colleague Brody Levesque shared a personal thought about this election cycle that stopped me:

“I just cannot get over how hateful some of the rhetoric is this time out. In 31 years of being a political reporter, I can’t remember seeing it this bad.”

Wow. Maybe I’m becoming inured or cynical, or maybe I’ve been too busy defending my own turf to make comparisons. But, I wonder if he’s right. When have we had stompings, regular threats of murder, bullying, rallies for hate, such blatant lies, ignorance in campaigns and reactionary forces being such a force in our country since the sixties? Maybe, but I don’t remember it. Feel free to remind me.

What strikes me is the ease with which the populace has accepted this shit. How easy I accepted it. Hmmm. Let’s look something up.

Hate: Etymology: Middle English, from Old English hete; akin to Old High German haz hate, Greek: kedos, care. Date: before 12th century; noun, intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury.

See the word “fear”? Just hold onto it for a minute. I’m going to digress slightly, but we’ll get back to this. Promise.

There is one thing that drives American culture more than anything else, and that thing is money.

The Complete Culture of Capitalism has some gruesome side-effects. People with a lot of money have influence and they get whatever they want with little or no accountability, and when they band together, they run the country (see Haliburton). The people with less money have very little influence and they rarely get what they want, even though they outnumber the rich. Why? Because the rich play the fear game. They divide us into opposing groups: Liberal and Conservative, gay and straight, moral and immoral, rich and poor, urban and rural, christian and heathen. They then teach us how to hate each other because our values are being threatened by “the other”. They do that because they have the money to do it, and like a child pitting two divorced parents against each other in order to get what they want, they stand back and watch us fight. Smugly.

This fighting and drama is all a distraction from the real issue, which is, as you probably guessed- money. The only problem with the divorced parents and child analogy is this: the child is really a changeling, a cuckoo. It is not their child, not really their responsibility at all. But the masquerade has been conducted so well that, even when faced by the truth, the parents refuse to accept it.

It’s a simple thing, but a complicated concept. Economics has more schools of thought that political science. But it made me wonder. On a single issue, fighting the gays, some friends of a friend casually wondered about the amount of money the Christian Right has spent over the last 3 decades- from Harvey Milk’s election in 1977 to the present day. It became kind of a fun project for them, and they worked for a while and came up with a conservative figure (pun intended) of 1.4 billion. That goes from before Anita Bryant well beyond the opposition of Prop 8.

Well over a billion dollars. And that was a simple figure. Makes me wonder what a serious graduate student or economist could do with this project.

Almost one and a half billion dollars. That may or may not include pastor’s salaries, plane tickets, gas, power bills, office supplies, etc. That to me, is a campaign to fight fear.

What exactly is fear? I think we take it for granted. Quite simply, fear is what happens when you think you’re going to get something you don’t want. That’s what I’m going to point out. The Christian Right has given up civil discourse in favor of missionary zeal to fight something they think they won’t want- and not only that, they have done it by lying. They perpetuate the ideology before the person. They have de-humanized “The Homosexuals”, for a very simple reason: there is no need to be civil if gays are less than human. It becomes acceptable in schools to bully and “smear the queer.” Do unto others doesn’t count if you’re not talking about real people. It becomes a moral imperative to be hateful and cruel- the irony of all ironies within a Christian context….

So what’s our job? I think there are mainly two right now.

Show Them The Money.
Facts are facts. I don’t think the average American knows how much money has been spent in smearing the queer. Show the people in the pews exactly how much money they have spent in keeping other human beings down.If polls are any indication, the number of people who want us to have equal rights are not outnumbered by those who don’t. The naysayers are just spending more money. And they are spending it in the name of everyone they represent, with or without their permission. Local and national politicians, PACs, even entire denominations and corporations are contributing money to prevent equal rights. I think that if the people knew how much money was being spent in their name, it wouldn’t happen so easily. Accountability would be more highly sought and touted. 8: The Mormon Proposition was on the right track, but it didn’t go far enough. Prop 8 is just the latest and most widely publicized fight in over 40 years of political and social struggling. Our job is to call this funding what it is: prejudice and bigotry. And no matter how they try to hide this money (and hiding is just a way they show they know it’s wrong) we must work to find it. (Where are you, gay economists and forensic accountants?)

Come Out.
Come out as far as you feel you can, and support others when they come out.Reclaim our humanity in the eyes of our oppressors. Harvey Milk said this:

“I cannot prevent some people from feeling angry and frustrated and mad, but I hope they will take that frustration and that madness and instead of demonstrating or anything of that type, I would hope they would take the power and I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay doctor come out, every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let that world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody would imagine. I urge them to do that, urge them to come out. Only that way will we start to achieve our rights.”

We have to be real. We have to be human. Our job is to be visible, to be teachers, to show our families, our neighbors, our churches, our communities and our nation that we are not monsters. We are not the antichrist. We are human beings with feelings and families and jobs and faith. We know fear and pain and loss. We know joy and love and happiness. We are people who love. We are not a threat to anyone’s marriage or faith or family. Personally, I think my most important jobs is to teach other human beings how to love what they do not understand.

This all boils down to the same thing: the unifying principle of humanity. Most people aren’t interested in oppressing other people. Those that seem to be are lost in the rhetoric that LGBT’s are not human beings. It’s our job to show them that we are. Shakespeare wrote one of the first and most beautiful pleas for civil rights and equality in The Merchant Of Venice, when Shylock, a Jew, finally responds to the blatant prejudice of his day:

“I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”

Like Shylock, we have to continually remind the world of our humanity until any rhetoric to the contrary becomes powerless. Until Smear The Queer is no longer played on our playgrounds and in our elections. Unlike Shakespeare, I am not justifying revenge. In fact, I want just the opposite. I’m suggesting militant understanding and sanity. Sanity through honesty, intelligence, perseverance and diligence. We have to stand up and speak when we’re told to sit down and shut up. We have to rebuff the anger and fear with the truth. We have to. Now more than ever.

The most important candidate in this election is fear. And it’s our job to oppose it and expose it for what it really is- a dehumanizing cuckoo.

The only thing we have to lose is our humanity.

Ravndal’s Back

Oct26 by D Gregory Smith

You heard me.

KXLH News is reporting that:

Tim Ravndal, who headed the Big Sky Tea Party until he was ousted following a controversial message he posted on Facebook, has been tapped for a leadership post in the Lewis & Clark Conservative Tea Party organization in Helena.

In an e-mail, Ravndal said that the Lewis & Clark’s Conservative Tea Party is “organized and open for business,” and that the purpose of the group is to stop the “extremists’ outright attacks on our liberty, freedom, integrity and moral values here in Montana and across America.”

The group’s founder, Bobbette Madonna, said she is extremely pleased that Ravndal, the former president of the Big Sky Tea Party Association, has been elected as the group’s executive director.

Great- the man who wanted the “Wyoming instruction manual” on how to hang fruits is in charge of the Lewis & Clark Tea Party. The man who openly espoused the murder of other human beings is the executive director of a Montana political organization hiding behind the skirts of “conservatism”.

KXLH again:

After Ravndal’s comments got picked up by national blogs and local news outlets, he issued an apology on Facebook which has since drawn hundreds of responses: “In sharing news about ACLU suing Montana on the gay marriage issue, I made a mistake and commented on a post that implied that I condone violence against another human being. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Those that know me understand and that is all that matters.” (emphasis mine)

No, Mr Ravndal that is not all that matters. People who preach hate and murder against anyone perceived as different or “immoral” are a threat to the safety of all peace-loving people everywhere. This country was founded on the principle of equal protection under the law. The United States has enshrined life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people in it’s code of law. The law of the United States of America, not the King James Version of the Bible (which is a deficient translation in itself, but I digress).

Your remarks and subsequent “apology” do nothing to appease me. It’s your actions that I find repulsive and dangerous. Actions which, according to photographic proof, are pretty difficult to deny or misconstrue. You meant those remarks. You played along. You contributed to fear, hate and mistrust in the hearts of Montanans and, sadly, other Americans. That casual conversation is much more a measure of your values than any political statement could ever be. That’s who you are.

That’s why I don’t trust you. That’s why you will be held accountable for your words and actions in the future. Too many innocent kids have taken or attempted to take their lives because of words like the ones you and your friends used. Too many minority Americans (pick whichever minority you like) are afraid to live their lives openly for fear of violence or ugliness. That’s why I can’t believe an organization is “proud” to have you unless they have the same beliefs and values that you do- especially the notorious ones.

Sorry, but I have to stop now.

I feel sick.

Cross-published at Bilerico.com

Eight False Things The Public “Knows” On Election Day

Oct26 by D Gregory Smith

And while we’re on the topic of things to think about this election cycle, Dave Johnson puts forth a few of his own, including:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush’s last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama’s first budgetreduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the “stimulus” was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the “stimulus” with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be “non-reviewable by any court or any agency.”) The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.