Category Archives: Guest Post

Listening To “Christians”- They Don’t Speak For Me

by D Gregory Smith

by  

Michael Brown, “Line of Fire”

Michael Brown interviewed Scott Lively on Brown’s daily radio show “The Line of Fire,” October 19th .  Lively, President ofDefend the Family, is one of the more prominent staunchly anti-gay activists in the world and Brown, founder of Coalition of Conscience, is quickly gaining status in the US for his similar views. Both cite their Christian faith as the source of their passions in combating the “radical gay agenda.”  Both see themselves as God’s instruments in the final stages of this battle to wake up and involve fellow Christians.

Brown repeats often that at 16, he was “radically saved from heroin addiction,” and Lively attributes his immediate deliverance from alcohol and drugs to God.  In their zeal, Brown, Lively and others take the healing gifts and transforming powers of God and apply them to sexual orientation,  expecting gay and trans people to also be radically delivered.  The “if God did it for me, He will do it for you” attitude is Biblical, but not when applied to sexual orientation.

Scott Lively, Defend the Family

On the show, Lively was recounting the trauma of his weekend in Chicago.  He had gone to a ceremony at Christian Liberty School to receive an award from Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH), hosted by Peter LaBarbera.  The  morning of the event, two brick pavers were thrown through the glass doors of the school with warnings to “shut down Lively and AFTAH.”

When reported, the Chicago Police would not pursue the incident as a hate crime.  Even as I listened to the exchange, I looked up the definition of “hate crime.”  A “hate crime” is “a crime where the perpetrator has a prejudice against the race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical or mental disabilities of the target.”  Although Lively, a trained attorney,  decried the event as a “hate crime,” the police registered it as “vandalism.”  Agreed.  This was not a crime against a Christian for his views; this was a criminal reaction against Lively and AFTAH, two groups both solidly anti-gay enough to score positions on the Southern Poverty Law list of “Hate Groups.”

The tossed brick

Brown and Lively continued the chatty exchange:

  • The police department in a “deliberate attempt to prevent the gay community from  getting any negative publicity” had decided to not call the action a hate crime, but vandalism” instead.  SL
  • “Chicago has been  under the control of the far left for a long time and the individual officers may have marched in the Gay Pride Parade themselves.   I would not be surprised.”  SL
  • “The fact is homosexual activists have accomplished a lot by adopting the underdog status.” MB
  • “This [homosexual radicalism] is the issue of  not just of our times, but of the end times.” MB
  • Christians “would be derelict in our duties as believers to not be involved in this issue.” MB
  • MB on SL:  Scott Lively “is standing for country, standing for rightousness.”  MB
  • Playing “devil’s advocate”, MB asks “Why go to Uganda to provoke them to write the ‘Kill the Gays Bill’?” Lively answers, he went to Uganda in 2002 as a keynote on a conference on pornography and obscenity and to assist in the “pro-family” movement.
  • Gay men from the US and Europe started going to Uganda in 2003 and “kicked off a sexual revolution”  “messing with the boys” and“paying little girls to recruit lesbians.” SL
  • Lively hoped to bring the first world model of “rehabilitation from homosexuality just like when I was rehabilitated as an alcoholic” to Uganda and “spoke to the Ugandan Parliament and churches.” SL
  • Lively, with the unique expertise of “overlaying gay history over mainstream history,” is able to cite gay people as the root of the holocaust because “Romans 1 teaches that the reprobate mind was lived out in Germany.”  He documents this in “The Pink Swastika.”  SL

How does a Book with a message of love, grace and equality get so tangled in this “the gays are destroying marriage, families and society” mess?  Clearly, there is danger in taking the tenets of the God-inspired Book of Truth and placing them atop man-biased beliefs of fear.  To Brown, Lively and  about half of the Christian Church, being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender is a choice and a sin.  When you overlay a “sinful, chosen behavior” with a few verses in the Bible, taken out of context and mistranslated, it results in the attitudes so clearly expressed between Brown and Lively on “Line of Fire.”

If we, as Christians, fail to understand the natural diversity of God’s creation in sexual orientation and try to impose the expectations that Brown, Lively and others have on an entire class of people, we will join in the fear-based biases, the withholding of equality and the exclusion of non-heterosexual Christians from our faith communities.  Never could I have imagined Jesus and the Apostle John having the exchange I heard on Brown’s radio show.

I have given up on trying to influence either Brown or Lively, both with whom I have had extensive interaction.  But, watching and listening, are well-intended, good Christian people trying to discern the truth in this dialogue.  All one needs do is pay attention to the tone of the message.  Fear, lies, misinformation and discrimination are not Jesus-values.  Use God eyes and ears in truth-seeking; you’ll find it.

10 Things in 10 Years

by D Gregory Smith

Ten Things I’ve Learned in Ten Years About Gay People| A Christian Perspective

By Kathy Baldock, Canyonwalkerconnections.com

September 29, 2011

In 2001, if you had asked me “Kathy, can you be gay and Christian?”  I would have hedged a bit and fallen on the side of “No”. I did not have any close relationships with gay people nor had I ever studied the issue for in the Bible.  I did not even know one gay Christian, that I knew of. It was from this paradigm that I formulated my opinions about the lives of gay people and made assumptions about their status with God.  All that changed when I met Netto on a hiking trail. It has now ten years later and I offer ten things that I wish straight people, especially Christians, knew about gay people.

People who do not understand the views of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are not all bigots and people who are fully affirming in their support of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender * people are not all heretics. This conversation often is relegated to love and hate, right and wrong, but there is a wide expanse between the two sides and that middle group is, for the most part, silent. You are the ones to whom I am offering these insights from experience, knowledge, study, relationship and with a genuine interest in engaging the too often silent middle.

With Bible in hand and in spirit, an open mind and heart and a willingness to listen to people, I entered the conversation that often brings out the worst in people. I hope to inspire you to movement and to speaking up with the Jesus-voice inside you.

Ten years and thousands of miles ago, I met Netto on a hiking trail. It was a time for conversation, the answering of all my stupid questions and an opportunity to get to know my Native American, agnostic, lesbian friend. Miles translated to trust for both of us and the growing relationship challenged my cultural Evangelical stances on homosexuality. My insights include a time line to show the long, thoughtful and prayerful process. These are ten things I have learned in ten years about the gay, lesbian and bisexual community, especially the Christian segment of that community.

1.  Being gay is not a choice.  In the US, we are almost evenly divided on the “are people born gay?” (42%) vs. “do they choose to be gay?”(44%) question . For the most part, how we answer this will dictate related views about inclusion in the church and civil rights for gay, lesbian and bisexual people. When individuals hold the “born gay” option as true, it is more probable that they are also supportive about extending equality to the gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

To the contrary, those who believe people “choose to be gay” most often see being gay as a “behavior” and not an intrinsic part of person’s being.  Behaviors, they reason, are controllable and changeable and therefore, they conclude, sexual attraction is controllable, if not changeable. When sexual orientation is seen as a choice and a behavior, people are less likely to extend civil rights and inclusion in the church for gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

This one issue is the key and it took a long time and many relationships for me to understand. What you believe either unlocks the passage to equality or it keeps the door shut and segregates. It is the premise upon which most of the insights I offer builds.

There is no gene yet discovered for human sexuality, whether that be heterosexual or homosexual. Opinions formed in and out of relationships along with anecdotal evidence become the basis for each of our truths. Relationship. I write and say that word a lot, it matters.

I was raised in a moderately prejudice home in the New York City area; my stepfather was horribly biased against the black community. While he was recovering from cancer surgery, he roomed with a lovely elderly black man. After a week together in a hospital room, sharing experiences and interacting with this man’s family, my stepfather’s views about the black community changed. After six decades of bigotry, he saw this man as just another human. Relationship does that.

Similarly, for me and the 42% who believe that being gay is not a choice, that conclusion is the fruit of relationships and listening. Informed decisions based in information and experience are best, lacking that your opinion on this issue says nothing about your intelligence or your ranking on the “good person” scale.  Without interaction with gay people, you may not understand that most gay people know between the ages of five and eight that they are “different”; this was a powerful message for me. Before a sexual thought ever occurs, they “knew”.   Typically, it took another five years before they began to label the difference. When puberty kicked in, they noticed the comments and feelings of their friends did not jiving with their experiences. What followed was an average of another three and a half years of struggling in confusion for self-acceptance of being gay.

Being gay and sexual orientation are not as simple as “who you have sex with”. Sexual orientation speaks of an emotional, relational and sexual fulfillment and comfort. Gay people, just like heterosexual people, are attracted, at the core, to a gender at a young age. All of this is innocent and has no sexual overtones.  As heterosexuals, when we recall a crush on a second grade teacher or the warm ease of being with a family friend, we never associate “sex” with it, yet we will often insert “sex” into the historical impressions of a gay person. Long before thoughts of sex enter a child’s brain, both heterosexual and homosexual children have a brain imprint of attraction. There is no choice for “behavior”. It is innate. Actually, 93% of mothers say they knew their gay sons were gay at an early age.

All this information bore out in the lives of people I met while with Netto. I started to meet people in long-term same-sex relationships that had never been romantically interested in the opposite sex, never. Others had been married and were parents.  I had fallen into believing marriage to the opposite sex was “proof” of a person’s heterosexuality. Being married and bearing children do not mean one is straight.  As one of my friends puts it, “It just means that you fantasize really well.” There are numerous reasons gay people marry the opposite sex:

  • They know they are “different” however exploring that difference is taboo and culturally or religiously unacceptable. Some people get married before they understand that they are not heterosexual.
  • They marry because it is expected, or they want a family
  • They are told they will change by getting married. Some people still believe the careless attitude of “All you need to do is find the right woman/right man and you will get rid of these feelings”. No amount of my being with women, and in the last ten years, with legions of lesbians,will or can make me a lesbian.   Just as I am straight, about 5% of people are gay.  (Situational sex in prisons does occur. This is NOT a change in orientation; it is a sex choice for convenience.)

The question of “born gay” or “choose to be gay” is the hinge of the rest of my insights.  A few relationships with the lesbian coffee shop barista, your gay hairdresser or a neighbor as he passes you walking his dog will not help you honestly evaluate an entire class of people. Don’t rely on an equally uninformed pastor, politician or pundit, get to know people.  Using uninformed opinions to decide on civil matters for a class of people is careless. Allowing those same distant opinions to influence spiritual “policies” is even more egregious. Do relationship, ask, listen and listen some more.

Read the rest here

 

Reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” a Good Beginning

by D Gregory Smith

A Commentary by Warren J. Blumenfeld

The United States Congress last February passed and President Obama signed historic bipartisan legislation to rescind the so-called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy enacted in 1993 mandating that lesbians, gays, and bisexuals who join the ranks of the armed forces maintain complete silence regarding their sexual identities. Over the years, the military dishonorably discharged an estimated 14,000 service members on the so-called “charge” of being “homosexual” under this policy. On September 20, the policy reversal went into effect.

As our troops are currently stretched thin throughout the world’s conflict areas, the former policy only exacerbated the problem and discredited our country by eliminating an entire class of people whose only desire was to contribute to the defense of their nation.

This policy will end an era of blatant stereotyping, scapegoating, and marginalization. It will open a new epoch in which service members can serve their country proudly with honesty and with a deep sense of integrity. In addition, now a formerly excluded group of talented and committed students can join ROTC programs, and a new cohort of active service members will receive the benefits of educational and career enhancement opportunities.

They will enter into a social institution that often works to prevent genocidal slaughters anywhere throughout the world, and engage in humanitarian and peace keeping efforts – from disaster relief to cooling a number of the world’s “hot spots.”

Existing medical and conduct regulations, however, still prohibit many individuals along the transgender spectrum from enlisting.

As I have followed the debates over the years, I have been constantly struck by the arguments favoring maintenance of the DADT policy, ranging from fears over the “predatory nature of the homosexual” in bunks and showers, to homosexuals crumbling under the pressure of combat, to these service members placing themselves in compromising situations in which they will be forced to divulge critical defense secrets to foreign governments. I give credit to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people for maintaining a willingness to join the military following such scurrilous and libelous depictions.

While stated military goals may promote the notion of providing global security and protecting and defending the homeland, we must maintain and extend our focused and continued attention and critique, however, on the overriding abuses of maintaining a military that engages in unjustified incursions into other lands controlled by an industrial complex that promotes corporate interests.

In this regard, history is replete with not-so-illustrious examples of U.S. policy abuses enacted and enforced by the military establishment — from the extermination, forced relocation, and land confiscation of native peoples on this continent, to the unjustified and contrived war with Mexico, to the racist-inspired incarceration of Japanese Americans in the interior U.S. during World War II, to governmental destabilization efforts and military incursions into such places as Vietnam and Laos, Chile, El Salvador, Panama, the Philippians, and throughout the Middle East.

During the past decade, we have lost thousands of our brave warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the current military defense budget of approximately 768 billion dollars seriously drains our treasury and increases our national debt.

Looking over the history of humanity, it is apparent that tyranny, at times, could only be countered through the raising of arms. On numerous occasions, however, diplomacy has been successful, and at other times, it should have been used more extensively before rushing to war.

I, therefore, find it unacceptable when one’s patriotism and one’s love of country is called into question when one advocates for peaceful means of conflict resolution, for it is also an act of patriotism to work to keep our troops out of harm’s way, and to work to create conditions and understanding that ultimately make war less likely.

I contend that individuals and groups that stand up and put their lives on the line to defend the country from very real threats are true patriots. But true patriots are also those who speak out, stand up, and challenge our governmental leaders, those who put their lives on the line by actively advocating for justice, freedom, and liberty through peaceful means: the diplomats and the mediators; those working in conflict resolution; the activists dedicated to preventing wars and to bringing existing wars to diplomatic resolution once they have begun; the individuals of conscience who refuse to give over their minds, their souls, and their bodies to armed conflict; the practitioners of non-violent resistance in the face of tyranny and oppression; the anti-war activists who strive to educate their peers, their citizenry, and, yes, their governmental leaders about the perils of unjustified and unjust armed conflict and invasions into lands not their own in advance of appropriate attempts at diplomatic means of resolving conflict.

While the reversal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will reform a discriminatory policy, it in no way addresses the intense interconnections between the U.S. military and corporate interests and the promotion of U.S. capitalist hegemony worldwide.

Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Iowa State University. He is co-editor of Investigating Christian Privilege and Religious Oppression in the United States, editor of Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price, and co-editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice. Reprinted with permission.

Perspective Blindness

by D Gregory Smith

By Bart Vogelzang | VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA — We have recently seen some strong examples of perspective blindness; that is, not being able to see something because our perception of something ‘distant’ is obscured by something closer to us.

Most of us have heard the expression “can’t see the forest for the trees” but that is only the tip of the issue. Physically it happens all the time that we cannot see something further away because something closer to us obscures the view. In fact, kids even make a game of it, putting their fingers in front of their eyes to not see something. Your view from your windscreen can be obscured by something dangling from your mirror (which is why you are not supposed to drive with a handicap placard), or your passenger’s head may obscure the view out the side window, leaving you with a major blind spot when changing lanes. For that matter, the frames on your sunglasses might take away enough of your view that you don’t see something vital.
Sadly though, perspective blindness is not just physical in nature, but also mental and emotional. We can see the overall picture of starving children and adults in Somalia, but the nearness of our own worries about our next paycheck obscures it from our view. We see and cheer the drive for freedom in Libya, but it only takes a relatively moderate earthquake to make it all disappear from our consciousness. We feel sad and upset at the near loss or actual loss of a revered politician, but a freak storm in our own town completely negates all that angst and upset and we focus on the nearer and more prominent disaster immediately next to us.
This perspective blindness is a good thing, a survival instinct, which insists that nearby is more urgent than distant, more important as it could affect us right now, as opposed to some time in the future. However, it is also a very bad thing, because we don’t live our lives in little pockets of nearness, but live it in the overall world, interacting with all the various people surrounding us, both near and far. To not see the distant problems means not dealing with them, and that spells long term catastrophe, or at best, suffering. We need to make sure that we look away from our immediate surroundings and needs, at the more distant ones. We need to see developments before they become dangerous to our welfare.
The LGBTQ community is suffering from this perspective blindness to a huge degree–
We are wrapped up in our own personal angst, with bullies, family condemnation, ignorant remarks, seeking a loving partner, getting married, etc. What we are not seeing is the systematic attack being mounted by the conservative religious rightwing zealots, who are slyly using false and slanted language whenever they talk about homosexuality. We are not seeing their attempts to erode our support, with lies, faked reports and phony statistics. We are not noticing their efforts at changing laws, replacing politicians, and removing judges. Sure, the odd one of us does, probably because an incident is close to home, but for the most part nobody notices.
When Montana screws with their citizens’ rights, it is NOT just their problem, but only they seem to notice. When Maine is in a struggle for equality, is it NOT just their problem. When an idiot Governor holds ludicrous prayer meetings it is NOT just affecting that state, it is affecting everyone.
We need to clear our localized perspective away from our eyes, see the bigger picture, and deal with the greater issues which are coming to meet us; and they will come to meet us, whether we see them or not. If we don’t fix our perspective and deal with things, we will all pay the price. What we need to do, quite simply said, is take ANY attack on any one of us as being a personal one, and respond with all the strength and vehemence as if it was happening right now, to ourselves

Majority Of Australian Christians Support Marriage Equality

by D Gregory Smith
By Brody Levesque | SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA — A national opinion poll conducted by the Galaxy research group released Monday, ahead of a rally against same-sex marriage in the Australian capital city Canberra, finds a majority of Australian Christians support same-sex marriage.

The results showed that 53% of Australians who identify as Christians support same-sex marriage, while 41% oppose. 67% of non-Christians support it.

Australian Marriage Equality spokesperson, Malcolm McPherson, himself a Christian, said the poll shows church leaders and Christian lobbyists who oppose same-sex marriage are not representative of the feelings of most Australians on the subject of same-sex marriage as evidenced by the poll’s results.

The Galaxy poll found overall support for allowing same-sex marriage to 60%, which is unchanged from an identical poll conducted by Galaxy in October last year (the result of the October poll was 62%, which is within the margin of error of +/- 2%).

However, there has been a marked shift in how strongly views on the issue are held. Since October last year 5% of supporters of equality have shifted from “agree” to “strongly agree”, with a similar shift among opponents of reform from “strongly disagree” to “disagree”.

Religious leaders who have given their support to the campaign for marriage equality come from Uniting, Anglican and Baptist churches across Australia, and include Sydney minister and 2GB radio host, Reverend Bill Crews who said in an interview:

Today in Australia we all live in a secular non discriminatory society. Churches and other spiritual institutions exist within this society. It seems to me that in a secular and non-discriminatory society gay couples should be as free to marry as any other human couple. If people wish to be married within a religious or spiritual institution’s framework then they should accept the rites and rules of that institution. However it is the state that legitimises all marriages.

A Melbourne Baptist pastor, Matt Glover, said allowing same-sex marriages will benefit marriage as an institution:

When a couple want to be part of the institution of marriage, when they fully accept the same rights and responsibilities of marriage and treat marriage with the respect it deserves, why should they NOT get married? As a Christian minister, I believe that marriage is under threat from many angles, but also believe that recognizing same-sex unions will help return marriage to its rightful place in society.

An Anglican parish priest in Sydney, Rector David Smith was blunt in his assessment:

From a Christian point of view, marriage is an institution designed to serve two social needs:

1) contribute broadly to social stability

2)provide a stable environment for the nurturing of children.

If this is the case then the only questions Christians need to concern themselves with when it comes to the issue of gay marriage are these two:

1) Would gay marriage lead to greater social stability?

2) Would a married gay partnership be likely to provide a more secure environment for the nurturing of the children of a gay couple than an unmarried one?

I think the answer to both these questions has to be ‘yes’.

Buoyed by the poll results, Australian Marriage Equality has launched a Christians 4 Equality letter-writing campaign which has the endorsement of a wide range of Christian leaders and has already seen almost 10,000 letters sent to MPs from Australian Christians since the site went live last Friday afternoon.

The PinkNews UK reported that during a rally held yesterday in Canberra, the so-called ‘National Day for Marriage’ rally, an American anti-gay activist told the audience during her speech that gay marriage would lead to paedophiles marrying children. Rebecca Hagelin, a columnist for the right wing tabloid World Net Daily, also added that there is “no greater evil” than gay marriage supporters and that Christians are in a “war for the future of the human race”.

Australian Marriage Equality’s McPherson responded telling the PinkNews:

Christian groups that oppose marriage equality like the Australian Christian Lobby are entitled to their view, but they do not represent the majority of Australian Christians.

Clearly, most Australian Christians believe same-sex marriage is consistent with Christian values like justice, love, compassion and fidelity, not opposed to these values.

Adventures in the Molly House (or what I didn’t learn in History)

by growlingmutt

Not to knock my Central-Montana public education, but I think we skipped over some of the juicer parts of history.

Either that, or I nodded off when we learned of Princess Seraphina. An 18th Century Molly House Lady who brought a thief to court for stealing her clothes.  Ahh, queerness in the 18th century. The complete transcript of a trial in 1732 offers a peek at a character who knew how to work it. In an act of sheer extravaganza eleganza, Princess Seraphina, having been robbed at knife point, bloody and bruised, didn’t back down or cower. Girlfriend sued Thomas Gordon for ” putting him in fear, and taking from him a Coat, a Waistcoat, a pair of Breeches, a pair of Shoes, a pair of Silver Shoe-buckles, a Shirt, a Stock, a Silver Stock- buckle, and 4½d. in Money…”

The adventure of the Chevalier d’Eon was also skipped. You’d think in a county named Chouteau (with two “U”s, thankyouverymuch) the story of a spy who sported elegant gowns, who fought and fenced like a man yet walked like a woman would have been a great educational opportunity to spark some farm kid’s imagination and get her to learn more about French history…and transgender politics.

Yep. It’s history lessons like this that certainly would have rounded out my education. But, Mr. H, bless his basketball coach’s heart, never ventured into this territory.

Oh well, there’s always wiki on the interwebs.

guest host with the most

by growlingmutt

Hi, Ken here. I’m filling in for Greg for the next week. He’s off to a foreign land Canada to visit his girlfriend.  I mean, she’s a girl and he’s her friend. But I digress. And digest.

I can’t promise to be entertaining or educating. I can’t even promise that I’ll floss everyday. But I’m up for a laugh or two and have promised Greg I’d not fly the plane into the mountain do my best.

So, Bandit, Phyllis and I are running the show this week. Fasten your belts. Loosen your ties. Apply lip gloss if necessary.

This made me giggle.
gods, bless us all.

Guest Editorial: Because Our Children Are Watching

by D Gregory Smith

By Brody Levesque | BETHESDA, MARYLAND –

Exactly what is wrong with the human body? On second thought- no – let me rephrase the question; Exactly why does the American Public feel so repulsed by the human body in its unclothed form?
Granted, I’m an adult gay man who, while I admire the female form, I am not sexually stimulated nor do I find it quite as erotic as the male form. But, and here’s the caveat and in full disclosure and honesty, as there’s an obesity pandemic here in the United States- serious obesity problem – that quite frankly limits the numbers of human forms walking around I would consider pleasant to look at au natural.
Even so- there are some very nice male & female forms out running around which brings me to today’s subject; Anti-Porn Groups Urge Boycott of NBC’s new fall show ‘Playboy Club.’
According to Patrick A. Trueman, president of Morality in Media, a faith-based group in New York that fights porn in the media;
“The TV series will “contribute to the sexual objectification and exploitation of women and encourage greater acceptance of pornography.”
The Parents Television Council’s president Timothy F. Winter wrote to NBC saying:
“Putting a veneer of sophistication on an industry that exploits women and destroys families is not laudable, it is disgraceful. Whatever positive spin you may wish to put on the series, it is undeniably a betrayal of the trust you have built over the years with America’s families — the owners of the broadcast airwaves that you will be using to force this content into the living rooms of every family in your community.”
He then added
“In what manner does the airing of such material reconcile with your public interest obligations as a broadcast licensee?”
An executive at NBC Studios in Burbank, California, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me that ‘The Playboy Club’ series is based on the actual Playboy Club in Chicago, which became one of the busiest nightclubs in the nation during the 1960s. The show follows the drama that unfolds between Chicago’s powerful political and business movers and shakers who frequent the club and the scantily-clad Playboy ‘bunnies’ that wait on the men there.
Playboy magazine and empire founder Hugh Hefner did a voiceover for one of the first episodes of the show, describing the Playboy Club as a place “where everything was perfect, where life was magic, where the rules were broken and fantasies became realities for everyone who walked in the doors.
“It wasn’t the 50s anymore … and that was my kingdom. It was the place where dreams came true.”
According to my NBC source, the network calls the show “a provocative new drama about a time and place that challenged the social mores.”
Here’s the thing- look at the following picture:
Photo Courtesy of NBC-Universal Productions

I’ve seen MUCH less clothing both sexes on shows such as the old ‘Baywatch’ series and some of the reality shows that have invaded broadcast primetime in the past few years. In fact, I’d cite CBS’s Big Brother & Survivor as notable examples.

Oh, and shows on cable? Yeah, right, oh please don’t get me started.
But the PTC and their allies want assurances that no minor in the United States will ever lay eyes on the shocking sight of a woman in a satin swimsuit outfit and bunny ears. Because goddess knows, that is just the most scandalous thing thing ever! (Nothing worse than that is available to today’s kids with a few clicks of a mouse on the internet.)
In fact- I have researched this subject previously and the majority of kids today are internet savvy to the point of making the adults/parents/guardians look pretty silly.  Lets get Net nanny software? Today’s kids can find Anime of Bambi getting buggered by Thumper and having then the subject of *gasp* human flesh revealed? The PTC & company are pretty clueless, just ask any police agency or district attorney that’s arresting children for taking nudie pics of themselves on their mobile phones and “sexting” each other.
The Coalition for the War on Illegal Pornography, a coalition of more than 70 smaller groups (which includes Focus on the Family, Morality In Media, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women For America) told the Deseret News:
“NBC is now contributing to and encouraging a highly dangerous sexualized culture as they stoop further into the gutter for programming and profits.”
The rabidly ant-gay folks at the Florida Family Association — the group that flew a banner warning people about Gay Day at Disney World last month, have joined the war against NBC over the show, according to ChristianPost.com. The FFA warns that it intends to document all the advertisers of the show and publicise the names of those companies online and in emails to its base and like minded Christonut organisations.
God forfend that these people ever travel to Europe where nudity doesn’t even raise an eyebrow and there’s more tits, ass, and penis on commercials broadcast round the clock on regular television- not just cable- than online in porno sites.
Americans are their own worst enemies at times. Mind you, I think it’s genetic at times. They are, in some cases, descended from the Puritans, who in turn brought Americans the Salem witchhunt and whom even the English were only too happy to get rid of.
These folk are just plain morality morons and like the bumper sticker I spotted the other day states: “The Christian ‘Right’ Is Neither.”

Jesus Left Room For Same Sex Marriage- And New York Moved In

by D Gregory Smith

Kathy gives us more food for though in her journey to counter Christianists with common sense, biblical scholarship and (gasp) love:

What if clever, see-into-the-future Jesus, right there in Matthew 19, were saying to the disciples, “There are some people that do not fit into your husband/wife understanding of marriage, nor will they in the future. There will be some who cannot be confined by that one man + one woman dynamic, nor is this model given for them.”

“Don’t be messin’ with the Biblical model of marriage,” you may caution me. “Right there in Genesis 2:24 it says ‘a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife.’ Right there.” Well, the Hebrew word translated to “shall” in many translations is best translated in the imperfect tense as “will”. Some men will leave father and mother and join with a woman. And, according to Jesus, some will not fit the mold. For them, the model will not work.

The term “Biblical Marriage” in itself is interesting. Shelves in Christian bookstores are filledwith advice instructing us how to live out the perfect “Biblical marriage”.  I suggest that our contemporary norm for marriage is the cultural adaptation of Biblical principles that have evolved over the past two centuries. Do I want a marriage mimicking that of the average woman of Jesus day (or prior)? Do I, as a woman, want to be treated as property, told who to marry or be one of many in a stable of cuties? No.

Actually, hell no.

Read it all here.

Kathy Goes To SF Pride

by D Gregory Smith

Kathy (and message)

My friend Kathy is on a crusade- to let all LGBT persons know that not all Christians are out to hurt them- and I heartily support her work. This kind and loving woman is a fantastic ally of our community, and I’m very happy to help her in any way I can.

This week she’s posted about her experience in San Francisco at Gay Pride- and it’s a great read.

Excerpt:

For four years, I’ve been going to San Francisco Gay Pride wearing  a printed shirt that says “Hurt by Church? Get a Str8Apology Here.”  Accepting and affirming churches are present. They host booths and walk in the parade, but I walk around with a big target on my front and back inviting conversation. The idea came to me one day on a hike  while I  was  wondering, “How I could make my experience of serving with a church in SF more meaningful?”

Last weekend, I went to SF Pride again. It’s never easy. Even I, who can engage a deaf, mute rock, can still be intimidated. The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community has been told by Christians that it is too far from the reach of God, unless, of course, they get rid of their non-hetero sexual orientation. I go to these events carrying  the message that God is sexual orientation and gender identity neutral God who loves them. Just as He loves straight, go-to-church-every-Sunday, Bible-reading me.

Read about her adventures- and the amazing people she meets- here. It’s inspiring.