Wacko Kenyan "Moral Leader" Appalled By Gay Lion Sex

Paul Goldstein's photo of two male lions in a romantic
embrace has freaked out Kenya's film censor.

So a guy named Paul Goldstein took a picture of two male lions in Kenya seemingly having sex, and a Kenyan "moral leader" said human gay people must have taught the lions to do that.

Yes, I know the crazy train runs all over the world, doesn't it?

According to the New York Daily News, Ezekiel Mutua the head of Kenya's Film Classification Board has this theory:

"These animals need counseling, because probably they have been influenced by gays who have gone to the national parks and behaved badly."

Mutua  said the lions must have seen two gay guys going at it, and decided to copy the feat.

I guess that puts new meaning into the term "lion tamer."

Mutua, who clearly does not know much about wildlife (there often are same gender encounters among animals) marveled:

"I mean where on earth have you heard something like this happening. The demonic spirits inflicting in humans seem to have now caught up with animals."

Or the demonic spirits have infected people so badly that they freak out over everything that suggests anything gay.

Mutua, who I mentioned  heads the Film Classification Board, is also freaking out about gay themes in movies, no matter how benign.

His agency banned Disney's "Andi Mack" because the show added a gay character. "Any attempt to introduce gay programming in Kenya will be met with the full force of the law," Mutua said.

I guess Mutua never go to Kenya being a gay guy myself. Even if I promise not to teach lions how to have gay sex. Lions just aren't my type anyway.

Conservative Pundit Erickson Says Noncomforming Gay People Should Get Beaten Up.

Snowflake Erick Erickson wants everybody to look and act like
him because those who don't are so icky that it weirds him out

Erick Erickson, to use the term so often bandied about by conservatives, is a total snowflake.

It turns out that he finds people who are obviously different, especially gay people who don't dress and act like he wants them to, are totally icky and he Just. Can't. Stand. It.

Why can't people look and act like he wants them to? Why does he have to suffer through the torture of seeing guys who aren't as macho as he is? Why can't everybody just make him happy like he deserves? Or something.

This all started when, last week, Republican Senator Mike Enzi spoke to a group of middle and high school students in Wyoming and one of the students asked what he was doing to impro e the life of the LGBT community in Wyoming.

Part of Enzi's response was this:

"In Wyoming, you can be just about anything you want to be, as long as you don't push it in somebody's face."

Then he went on: "I know a guy who wears a tutu and goes to bars on Friday night and is always surprised that he gets in fights. Well, he kind of asks for it. That's the way he winds up with that kind of problem."

No, the problem is solved when, if you see a guy in a bar wearing a tutu and you don't like that fact, you ignore said guy in the tutu.

To Enzi's credit, he apologized for the inartful comments and called the guy who wears the tutu, who reports they had a productive conversation.

Well, pundit Erickson was NOT happy with Enzi's apology.

He responded by writing a column titled, "You Will Get Punched and Others Have Rights Too."

Erickson's column collapses in its very first paragraph, which is:

"You know, I'm really damn tired of all the people running around making other people extremely uncomfortable then screaming about their rights and priveges when called out. If you want to go around making people uncomfortable, you've got the problem, not the the rest of us."

Um, actually, you've got the problem Erick! If you fall apart because some guy is wearing a tutu in the same room as you, that makes you a total snowflake.

And you're the worst narcissist ever. It's not everybody else's job to make you comfortable and happy. You're not the center of the friggin' universe.

Again, the solution is so, so easy: Ignore the people you don't like.  You don't get to punch people who you believe are aesthetically displeasing.

Erickson goes on:

"I know liberals in the coastal bubbles of homogenized whiteness and skinny jeans think everyone has to be think like them - not does, but has to - but the reality is we don't. We are a culurally heterogeneous nation with diverse cultural norms."

Um, since when does anybody think you have to like their point of view and their skinny jeans. Nobody is making you do anything, Erick. You get to think what you want. And if skinny jeans give you the vapors, they you're really a wimp.

Erickson demands in his column that everybody he thinks are icky should "get over themselves." No, Erick, you need to get over yourself.

You don't get to dictate how others look and act. Just like me or anybody else has no right to demand that you act or look a certain way.

Sure, we can criticize you, and you can criticize anyone you want.

But don't go around justifying beating up people you think are weird.

Frankly, Erick, I think you're weird, but I don't want to beat you up and I don't want anybody else to, either.

Just chill.

Straight Dutch Men Have Perfect Response To A Homophobic Attack; Gay Putin Banned

Many straight men in the
Netherlands are holding hands
lately to protest a recent
homophobic attack on a gay couple

A week ago, a married gay couple were brutally attacked in Arnhem, a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands.

Apparently, the five horrible homophobic teenagers that attacked the couple couldn't stand the fact that the two men had been holding hands as they walked down a sidewalk, something that many, many married couples do routinely.

The teens are in a heap of trouble, of course, and most people in the Netherlands were horrified by the attack.

According to the Guardian, a journalist named Barbara Barend had a great idea to show solidarity to the couple who had been attacked. She tweeted a all for "all men (straight and gay) please to just walk hand in hand."

So, lots of men in the Netherlands are doing just that.  For instance, Button-down Alexander Pechtold, of the Democrats D66 party, showed up at a government meeting the other holding hands with his finance spokesman Wouter Koolmees the other day.

Very straight and macho looking Dutch military personnel posted photos of themselves on social media holding hands with other men. Male workers at Dutch embassies around the world also posted photos of themselves holding hands in solidarity.

Holding hands is just symbolic, of course, and, won't in itself get rid of homophobic violence. But it does put the world on notice, that we're not going to tolerate it. Anything helps.

Meanwhile, in much more homophobic Russia, authorities have banned the meme of Vladimir Putin as a "gay clown" whatever that is.

Vladimir Putin hates this meme of him, so don't share
it with anybody! Wouldn't want to offend him! 

It probably refers to a popular meme that shows Putin with lots of makeup, long eyelashes and bright red lipstick.

The Russian government has tried to depict Putin as super macho, like that famous image of Putin, shirtless, riding a horse, which to me is the gayest depiction of Putin I've ever seen.

Of course, the rest of the world is laughing at Putin being so insecure there can't be gayish images of him.

True, the Russian government is hostile and violent toward gay people, but one tool to fight that is mockery.

Sorry, with all of Putin's evilness, a good response is to laugh at that jerk.

And we might as well let Stephen Colbert pile on:

This Is The Right Way To Retaliate Against A Homophobic Neighbor

Lexi Magnusson's rainbow holiday lights  

There's a couple of neighbors in Washington State that aren't getting along with each other all that well this Christmas season.  

On the bright side- literally - the neighborhood had a lot more colorful holiday lights than it otherwise would have had there not been this disagreement between the homeowners in Kitsap County, Washington

This all started when a new family moved into Lexi Magnusson's neighborhood.

That new neighbor told Magnusson that she moved there from Oregon to "escape the gays and the transgender."

Magnusson was annoyed, but kept her mouth shut because she's sick and tired of all the yelling about politics and social issues this year. She was also confused about how anybody could "escape" gay and transgendered people since the pretty much live everywhere.

However, Magnusson felt the need to retaliate against her neighbor's bigotry. So she put up 10,000 lights on her bushes in rainbow colors to signify her opposition to her neighbor's stance on gay people.

The two neighbors aren't talking, though Magnusson said she still waves a friendly hellow to her anti-gay neigbhor.

Was Orlando Shooter A Self-Loathing Gay Man?

Was Omar Mateen, responsible for the Orlando
nightclub massacre, secretlu a self-loathing gay man?  

I know the following seems trivial, in the midst of the enormous tragedy of the Orlando nightclub shooting that claimed 49 lives, but it's not.

Turns out it's possible that Omar Mateen, that mass murderer, who targeted members of the LGBT community at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, could have been a self-loathing gay man.

This is all speculation, of course. In the days after these all-too common mass shootings, rumors and false impressions swirl like ugly soot from a wildfire.

But if Mateeen was secretly gay, the Orlando shooting is an extreme manifestation of what happens when society, or religion, or your parents tell you that being gay is evil, and yet you are gay.

I confess my gaydar went off when I first saw photos of the evil Mateen. The way he posed with his head tilted just so in some of his selfies, the way his features set in his face, made me somehow suspect it.

We first heard Sunday that Mateen's father his son't terrible violence was triggered when he saw two men kissing a couple months back, which totally angered Mateen.

Now we learn, according to some published reports anyway, that Mateen had been seen in Pulse occasionally for the past three years. 

He'd get very drunk and often was kicked out because of it.

Reports said he also communicated with at least one man through a gay dating app.

The Daily Beast reported that Mateen was once friends with a drag queen and several gay people.

None of this proves Mateen was gay, of course, but this does represent some circumstantial evidence.

There were apparently a lot of motivations behind Mateen's actions. Loyalty to radical Islamic terrorists. Mental instability. A propensity toward violence.

However, if Mateen was a closeted gay man, the shooting was the worst representation yet of how a closeted queer has done real harm to the LGBT community.

I'm sure past violence against the LGBT community was sometimes perpetrated by self-loathing closeted gay people.

Then there are the politicians. Check out The Advocate's rogue's list of anti-gay politicians who turned out to be gay themselves. They harmed the gay community with their bigoted policies as a cover to keep their political ambitions alive, apparently.

I have my suspicions about some other rabidly anti-gay Americans who are causing harm, too.

There's "Christian" pastor Steven Anderson, who yesterday said the Orlando massacre was "good news" because "homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts." Yeah, and I think you're one of them, Steven!

Then there's Theodore Shoebat, who's kill-the-gays videos are a hit on YouTube. I wonder about him, too.

Extreme right wingers and very conservative religious types love to spout off on how "evil" homosexuality is.

They've shamed countless gay people into the closet, into hating themselves.  Some of this bigotry over the years, decades and centuries has contributed to the kind of violence that we saw in Orlando Sunday.

Every once in awhile, a shamed, closeted gay person will lash out. Tragically.

Words matter, and to an extent anti-gay bigots have blood on their hands.

Some people have blonde hair. Some people have brown eyes. Some people are gay. It's that simple.

If you ever hear of or know someone who is LGBT and is being told he or she disgusting, wrong and is not worth anything, tell them the truth.  That they are valuable human beings.

I said words matter. Anti-gay bigotry matters.

Even more so, kindness, respect, truth and support matters. A lot.

If you love and respect and embrace members of the LGBT community, you might literally be saving lives.

Cruel Judge Lets His Hatred Of Gays Potentially Harm Baby Girl

Everyone seems to agree these two women make
fine parents, except for one activist Utah judge, who
says gay people like them are always unfit as parents,
evidence be damned.  

UPDATE:

As I pretty much expected, the judge who ordered the baby taken away from this gay married couple reversed himself, at least temporarily.

Judge Scott Johansen came under withering attack for taking the kid away from the two female foster parents, who are hoping to adopt the baby.

The judge is now letting the couple keep the kid for now, but has scheduled a hearing on December 4, and he's still got lots of misgivings about placing the baby with a gay couple.

This despite the fact that the two women have demonstrated their competence at raising a kid.
And despite the fact that his ruling appears to violate Utah and national law.

Even the Republican governor of Utah criticized this judge.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Campaign filed a formal complaint with the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission. We'll see where that goes.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

Yesterday, a judge in Utah ordered a one year old girl be taken away from her foster parents within a week.

The foster parents weren't abusing the kid. They are a married couple. Financially stable. No history of violence, crime or weirdness. Routine investigations showed the baby girl was doing well in this household. She was thriving. She seemed healthy and well-adjusted. The foster parents were providing her everything she needed.

So what's the problem? Well, Utah 7th District Court Juvenile Judge Scott Johansen decided that the married couple in question are lesbians, they are unfit to parent because they are gay, says the Salt Lake Tribune in a story extensively picked up by other media.

Which means the girl, who by all accounts was well cared for and loved by April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, now faces an uncertain and unstable future in Utah's foster care system.

The judge didn't provide any facts to back up his claim that a household with same sex parents is dangerous to a child, but made a vague reference to "research."

Says the Salt Lake Tribune:

"Johansen did not provide specifics of that research in court despite questions from attorneys for the Utah Division of Child and Family Services and the Guardian Ad Litem Office assigned to represent the child, Hoagland and Peirce said."

The studies the judge referred to might be from a widely discredited study by University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus, which said that children do more poorly with gay parents than with straight parents.

The Regnerus study was flawed, say experts, because of unreliable data or data that indicated the children in question were actually living with single parents or under different circumstances than with married, same sex parents.

Most other studies on the topic concluded that on average, children with gay parents do at least as well as those with straight parents.

According to Utah law, foster parents must be married couples or single individuals age 21 or older. They muset be U.S. citizes or permanent legal residents, they must pass background checks, must be financially stable, must be able to support their family without assistance from the state, they can't foster parent children and run a day care center at the same time, and must be healthy enough to care for the kids.

The Utah Division of Child and Family Services have reportedly investigated Hoagland and Peirce thoroughly, as they're supposed to do with every potential foster parent. The couple did just fine with the investigation and the child welfare agency supported the idea of the couple foster parenting the child.

Who, by the way, was to have eventually been adopted by Hoagland and Peirce. Which would have permanently given the baby girl a stable household where she could grow up to presumably be a nice stable adult.

According to the Tribune:

"'We have a lot of support,' Peirce said. "DCFS wants us to have the child, the Guardian Ad Litem wants us to have the child, the mother wants us to have the child, so the only thing standing in the way is the judge.'"

Of course, there's a big outcry over Judge Johansen now, so maybe this will get fixed. I've heard criticism, especially from conservatives, over "activist judges" making up their own laws.

Still, it's unclear how an appeal, of possible, would work.

Johansen is a classic example of an activist judge. He ignores case law, and interjects his own religious beliefs.

Hey, if Johansen doesn't like gay people or the fact some are parents, fine, he can do that. But he has to apply the law as it is written.

As I noted, this judge appears to be willing to damage a child in the name of hating gays.

By the way, this judge has been pretty jerky in the past, too. He slapped a teenage boy in the courthouse back in 1997 and has ordered a woman to chop the ponytail off a 13 year old girl who had apparently misbehaved.

But the damage he caused this time is too much.

I just hope the judge isn't a foster parent.

The Saint Of Dry Creek

A still from the YouTube animation of
Story Corp's "The Saint of Dry Creek."  

I love "Story Corp" on NPR.

Hell, I love Story Corp's entire web site. 

They're glimpses of lives, very personal that air each Friday.

Every time I hear Story Corp while I'm driving to work, I find myself crying.  Every once in awhile, human beings can be so giving, so wise.

Yes, humanity can be awful. Just read the news about terrorists attacks, ISIS, Congressional gridlock, corporate greed and any number of sins that are in the daily news.

But humanity can be poignant and beautiful, too. Especially when it's not cluttered with people with a shallow agenda.

One great example came my way today via JoeMyGod, a blog focusing on gay political and social issues.

It turns out Story Corps makes great videos of their stories too.  For animated visual versions of Story Corp,  it's totally worth it to check out their YouTube channel.   

And this one is awesome. It focuses on a rural dairy farmer dad, circa 1950s in rural Washington State.

This particular dairy farmer dad was incredibly wise, and way before his time. I just wish there were more people like him on Earth now. That's all I'm going to day about it. You just have to watch.

And you might get teary eyed, like I often do during Story Corps episodes.

"Relentlessly Gay" Baltimore Yard To Get Even More Relentless

The stupid note somebody left and the "relentlessly gay"
decorations in front of the house.  

If you're going to be a jerk about what you think of your neighbor's yard decor, prepare to suffer the consequences.

An anonymous person in Baltimore is finding that out big time after that person left a note complaining about the "relentlessly gay" decorations in front of one house.  

Here is the note, in full. Capital letters and bold letters are the work of the person who left the note on Julie Baker's Baltimore front door, says the Baltimore Sun:

"Your yard is becoming relentlessly gay. Myself and others in the neighborhood ask that you Tone It Down. This is a Christian area, and there are Children. Keep it up and I will be forced to call the Police on  you! Your kind need to have Respect for GOD. --A Concerned Home Owner."

The offending decorations were a string of rainbow colored solar lights. Words on the solar lights spell out "Love" and "Ohana," a Hawaiian expression of family unity.

I'll be Captain Obvious for a moment here and dissect the absurdity of the note the idiot left.  "Relentlessly Gay?" It's not like Baker is holding a major gay pride parade every day.

A Christian area? Home decor now must be conducted by some sort of Christian designer? And who designated the neighborhood Christian? What if a Jewish person wanted to move in? Isn't there laws against preventing the Jewish or atheist person or whatever from moving in to the house next door?

There are children in the neighborhood. Who will see the rainbow lights and go "how pretty." I don't think a few colored lights will make kids turn gay, do you?  Call the cops? Um, putting up a string of lights doesn't exactly qualify as a violent crime.

Anyway, Baker is fighting back the best way she knows how. Her property will now really, REALLY become "relentlessly gay."

The Baltimore Sun says Baker started a GoFundMe page with the following pitch:

"Needless to say.....I need more rainbows. Many, many more rainbows.....I ams starting this fundraiser so I can make my Home even more relentlessly gay."

At last check, Baker had collected something like $26,000. She should probably paint her whole house in rainbow colors.

I can just see the neighbor who left the stupid note fuming like crazy.   She should just give up and make her house "relentlessly Christian." Whatever that is. And I'm afraid to find out.

A Mom's Perfect (And Hilarious!) Reaction To Son's Announcement That He's Gay

Just watch. It's perfect:

Indiana's Little Pizza Shop Of Horrors

Memories Pizza in Indiana played the culture
wars well, and were rewarded with nearly $500,000
in GoFundMe loot.  

I hope the owners of Memories Pizza in Indiana are pleased as punch that they signed on to the nation's long running culture wars.

The people who run the place decided to get on TV and talk about their bigotry (they say Christianity), making themselves a target for all the yahoos out there, and then playing the martyr card when the yahoos inevitably attacked.

They've got the playbook down pat, don't they?

Here's the backstory: As you probably heard, Indiana is in an uproar because the governor, Mike Pense, signed legislation called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Though the backers of the law denied it, the new legislation went beyond somewhat similar, existing laws in other  jurisdiction and pretty much opened the door for businesses to turn gay people away because some business owners' religious beliefs say that gay people are scummy.

Or something like that.

Amid cries of boycotts, and the business establishment canceling expansions, hiring and events over the uproar, the law was just "modified" a bit to make it a tiny bit less discriminatory.

The owners of the pizza place, Crystal O'Connor and her father Kevin O'Connor,  came forward the other day and said their restaurant is a "Christian establishment" and thusly favored the law as it was originally signed by Pense, because they wouldn't want to be forced to cater a gay wedding because they don't believe in the "homosexual lifestyle," whatever that is.

I'm not sure there's any gay couples out there who think their dream wedding is one catered with pizza from Memories Pizza, but what do I know?

They would, grudgingly, serve a gay couple if they came into the restaurant and just wanted a pizza. But for all I know they'd spit in their pizza.

By announcing to the world that they favored discrimination against gay people, the owners of Memories Pizza had to have known they would put themselves in the middle of a huge shitstorm.

And boy did they ever.

The backlash against Memories Pizza was, well, memorable, but also predictable. All kinds of off-color, crude, and very negative Yelp reviews went up, the restaurant's web site was hacked, and the restaurant owners got the inevitable death threats.

Because trolls of all stripes, be they liberal, conservative or neither, have their go-to button. Anytime they remotely dislike something or someone, they let the death threats fly.

As if that would accomplish anything.

Of course, the pizza place shut down in the face of the threats, and stupid pranks like ordering pizza they have no intention of actually buying.

The idiots that issued the threats enabled the pizza restaurant owners to play that martyr card, that all gay people were fascists who wanted to take over the world.

The pizza joint established a GoFundMe page to garner donations from like minded people (some say mouth breathing knuckle draggers, you decide) to stay afloat. At last check they'd collected something like $485,000, probably more than that by now.

I bet the owners of Memories Pizza are already packing their bags for a nice vacation to Cabu with that loot.

I have no idea how financially stable Memories Pizza was before all this started. It might have been making money like gangbusters, or it could have been about to fall off a monetary cliff. Who knows?

But you've got to hand it to the people who run this pizza joint. They certainly took full advantage of a Big Public Controversy.

They got their own bully pulpit, so they could attempt to bully people they don't like, as prescribed by their so-called "Christian" beliefs. And they get a ton of free money to boot.

I don't know if Memories Pizza people thought this through ahead of time as a money making scheme, but it sure worked out that way.

Yes, they were probably genuinely frightened by the idiots issuing their threats and probably didn't think their public comments would blow up to be a national story.

The anti-gay bigots win big, too. They can point to Memories Pizza and say anytime they come down on the side of what they call righteousness, "Big Gay" will threaten them into silence, and take away their free speech rights.

Of course, anytime you say something, the First Amendment doesn't give you any protection from people criticizing it.

Plus, there's always a few idiots among the mostly peaceful, normal people who don't like anti-gay bigotry.  The idiots who issue threats are the ones that get all the attention, because they're not about anti-gay bigotry, they're all about getting attention. Morons.

Death threats are always, always wrong. I've always wondered why they're not prosecuted more vigorously.

The anti-gay activists can also claim, falsely, that the bundles of money Memories got via GoFundMe proves that everybody in America hates the gays, just like them.

Though the corporations that rebelled against the "religious rights" law know a majority of people don't like this type of discrimination. It's bad for business.

But, Memories Pizza sure captured a niche here. There are a fair number of people out there who Hate The Gays.

In terms of making bundles of money and becomin a poster child "martyr" for the radical Christian right, well played, Memories Pizza!

English Language School Teacher Fired Over Blog About Homophones Because His Boss Thinks Homophones Are Totally Gay

This guy's language school blog
post about homophones got him fired. 

The English language can be tricky for those trying to learn it.  

There was a guy named Tim Torkildson at the Nomen Global Language Center who wrote a helpful blog post about homophones, which are words that sound the same but have completely different meanings.

Think "peal" and "peel" or "flour" and "flower."

Here's the "problem": The word "homophone" has "homo" in it. Torkildson's boss, Clarke Woodger, fired him, because the subject of homophones is just so gay.

Paul Rolly, writing in the Salt Lake Tribune, reported that Woodger complained that because of the blog, "now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality."

Actually, it wouldn't have, had Woodger not been so homophobic that any word with the word "homo" in it is totally gay.  

Um, can you have words that have a same-sex attraction toward each other?  

As Rolly reports:  "(Torkildson) knew the 'homo' part of the word could be politically charged, but he thought the explanation of that quirky part of the English language would be educational."

Boy, was it ever! I had no idea I should avoid words with the word "homo" in it, like "homosapien" or "homogenize" because they're so gay.

Torkildson said he wanted to teach the concept of homophones because such words are confusing to someone whose native language doesn't have that feature, Rolly reports.

However, Woodger said that most of his language school's students are at a basic level of English proficiency and are not ready to learn complex concepts like homophones.

This whole thing could get worse, though, if you consider another word for homophone is homonym.

Yep, as I said, the English language is just so queer.

Cop Won't Work At Pride Parade Because He's Afraid Of Gay Cooties

My nomination for the wimpiest cop on the planet is the one in Salt Lake City who refused to work traffic and crowd control at a gay pride parade.   

A Salt Lake City cop is apparently terrified of these
absolutely "scary" bunch of people.  

About 30 cops were assigned to the parade. It sounds like a pretty routine assignment. Every parade in every city has police making sure everything runs smoothly.

I don't know that much about policing, but traffic control at a parade doesn't seem all that dangerous, at least compared to dealing with murderers and robbers and such.

The officer has not been identified, but he has been placed on leave pending a review.

It appears the cop's supervisors are not amused:

"We don't tolerate bias and bigotry in the department and assignments are assignments... To allow personal opinion to enter whether an officer will take a post is not something that can be tolerated in a police department," said Salt Lake City Police Department spokeswoman Lara Jones.

In other words, do your job, pal.

Oh, the small number of virulent anti gay ranters and bigots and wacked out extreme right wingers will hold up this guy as a martyr. They'll say how we can no longer live our lives in the Christian way we want. Or something like that.

That forgets the little detail that the cop was never asked to endorse the march, or gays in general. He's only supposed to do crowd control. In other words, be on the same street as a bunch of gay people and their supporters.

I'm sure he's been in the same room with murderers and thieves and such. Does that mean he endorses murder and thievery?

No, he's just afraid of gay cooties. Or something.

Can you imagine the chaos if all of us refused to work around people we don't like? Just ignore laws and rules to keep our sensitive little ignorant brains happy?

If the cop is this afraid of a bunch of gay people enjoying a parade, he must be absolutely terrified of more dangerous people, like rapists, muggers or even jay walkers. Is this the type of cop who should be trying to keep us safe?  

The other 29 cops who were assigned the gay parade in Salt Lake City don't seem to be complaining. I'm sure some of them aren't super enthusiastic about gay people. But they're doing what they're paid to do.

Salt Lake City Police are gay friendly enough anyway. The organizers of the Pride parade say they have a good working relationship with the city's police department.

It's just that our wimpy cop is an outlier. Happens to the best of organizations. Not every employee turns out to be competent.

Maybe the cop can find another line of work. Let's just hope he doesn't apply for a job as a bouncer at the wrong night club. Can you imagine what would happen if his first night turned out to be the Mr. Leather competition at some gay bar?

ALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Salt Lake City police officer has been placed on leave after refusing an assignment to work at a gay pride parade.

The officer was among about 30 officers assigned to provide traffic control and security for the annual Utah Pride Parade on Sunday in Salt Lake City, said department spokeswoman Lara Jones.

"We don't tolerate bias and bigotry in the department, and assignments are assignments ... To allow personal opinion to enter into whether an officer will take a post is not something that can be tolerated in a police department," Jones told KSL.

She declined comment on the officer's reason for refusing the assignment.

The officer, whose name was not released, is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation.

Utah Pride Center spokeswoman Deann Armes said her group is pleased with the department's stance and thinks officers should undergo sensitivity training before joining the force.

"Our goal is to make sure that police training and certification includes policies and oaths to ensure that all officers are committed to providing equal service and treatment of all citizens. Clearly, bigotry is alive and well," Armes said in a statement.

Police Chief Chris Burbank has marched in the parade in the past, and three deputy chiefs will march Sunday while he is out of town.

The department also will have a community outreach and recruitment booth at the pride festival, Jones said, and participates in a standing committee to address public safety issues relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents.

"We have gay men and women that serve in the police department," Jones told The Salt Lake Tribune. "One officer's situation does not reflect the vast majority of officers that work in the Salt Lake City Police Department and certainly not Chief B

Florida Lawmaker Somehow Concluded New Common Core Education Standards Will Make Your Kids Gay

The U.S. Education Department is pushing new standards for our kiddies called "Common Core" 

Florida Rep. Charles Van Zant says Common Core
education standards will turn all the kids gay. EEK!  

It's been the cause of a lot of debate, pro and con, and I won't bore you with the details of that argument here.

Except for one novel objection raised by Florida State Rep. Charles Van Zant, who said Common Core will turn all our kids gay, according to Think Progress.

Van Zant says Common Core will "attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can."

He doesn't explain exactly how Common Core will do that, but if Van Zant says it will, who are we to argue?

I took a cursory tour of the U.S. Department of Education's Web site on Common Core and didn't see any enticements for children to become gay, but maybe it's all in code that only children can understand, and Van Zant has sleuthed it out.

Van Zant has a lot of things figured out anyway. As Gawker noted, people who are worried about the world running out of gas and oil supplies are stupid, because God will give us an ample supply.

 "If we ran out, I certainly believe he could make some more," Van Zant said. Maybe Exxon/Mobil should hire God to run their oil and gas exploration unit.

A Great Big Gay Weekend Unfolds

Twitter was, um Atwitter Saturday night with these three facts repeated ad nauseum in hundreds of 140-character or less missives:

Michael Sam, with his boyfriend, being told
Saturday that he is being drafted by the NFL team
St. Louis Rams.

1. A bearded drag queen singer named Conchita Wurst won Eurovision, the enormous, premier annual song competition in Europe. She's quite good.

2. Two lesbians got married in Arkansas Saturday, complete with a valid Arkansas State marriage license, thanks to a judge's ruling on Friday

3. The NFL team St. Louis Rams drafted Michael Sam, the openly gay football player. When Sam got the news he kissed his boyfriend, and the pair playfully smashed cake into each others' faces.

Needless to say, few of us, including Yours Truly, never thought we'd see any of these things happen, much less all in one bright Saturday in May.

It sure does leave me in a cheerful mood, though.

Bearded drag queens, Arkansas lesbians and gay football players might or might not be your cup of tea, but the message to the LGBTQ community is clear: You've come a long way, baby.

The world still isn't perfect for gay people, but it is slowly becoming more fair.

There will always be a virulent anti-gay crowd, still paranoid that any time a gay person gets married, or keeps a job, or adopts the kid, the Apocalpyse Is Upon Us.  So far, the sky hasn't fallen, so I think we're safe.

This anti gay crowd has long seen the writing on the wall, which is why they seem to have been getting more shrill and unhinged in their opposition to gay rights.

This couple got married in Arkansas Saturday.  

The news from Saturday will probably really put them over the edge.

I have mixed emotions about that fact. Of course I have a terminal case of schadenfreude, that sense of guilty pleasure over people not having a good time, so I'll indulge in that for awhile.

I'm sure the religious right, and probably Fox News, is depressed, angry and distraught at the moment.

On the other hand, when some people are ideologically backed into a corner, they lash out like a trapped animal. I worry that the drumbeat of great news for the gay community will increase gay bashings, as a few yahoos take matters into their own hands, thinking they're "saving the world" when they're just being idiots.

Other nations see what's going on and are joining the gay bashing wagon, too. These national leaders trying to distract their populace from their own incompetence or mendacity by exploiting anti-gay hate for their own self-preservation.

That's why Vladimir Putin in Russia has been pushing anti-gay laws. And why Brunei wants to put gay people to death via stoning.  And why Uganda is pretty much doing the same thing, pushed along by the odious American anti-gay activist Scott Lively. 

But you've got to be brave. That's how Conchita Wurst the bearded drag queen, our happy married lesbians in Arkansas and Michael Sam got what they wanted and deserve.

For the rest of us, it encourages to seek and win our own little victories.

Which is always an awesome thing

Nabisco Lovingly Tells Honey Maid Ad Gay Family Critics To Go Pound Sand

Nabisco, makers of tons of stuff, including Honey Maid graham crackers, released a bunch of warm, fuzzy ads last month talking about how families come in all shapes and sizes.

A still from the first Honey Maid ad that raised
the ire of conservatives. 

One of the families consisted of two gay dads and their kids, who of course love each other, AND Honey Maid graham crackers.

(The ad also featured a tattooed rock drummer dad and an interracial family, which I'm sure helped send some extreme conservatives over the deep end.)

But the gay family raised the ire of groups like One Million Moms, who urge boycotts of every company they think promote sin.

I don't think there are one million moms who are members of One Million Moms and I think the few remaining must be dying of starvation because they've pretty much urged that we boycott everything, but that's another story.

This time, One Million Moms said they objected to Honey Maid's use of the word "wholesome" to describe the two gay dads and urged us all to write angry letters to the company.

I'm afraid I didn't write that letter because I was too busy driving to the store to buy Honey Maid graham crackers, so I'm sure One Million Moms will urge people send angry letters to me, too.

And a still from the second ad, which tells
conservative critics, lovingly, to go pound sand.  

But still, One Million Moms was pretty ticked at the makers of this ad.

They said:  "Nabisco should be ashamed of themselves for their latest Honey Maid and Teddy Graham cracker commercial where they normalize sin," wrote the group. "This commercial not only promotes homosexuality, but then calls the advertisement wholesome."

Maybe One Million Moms has a point. No, the two gay dads aren't the problem, and they do seem to be a nice family.

But if the dads feed their kids too many Honey Maid graham crackers and the kids get fat and unhealthy as a result, then that's not particularly wholesome.

However, it looks like the kids get the crackers only as a treat every once in awhile so it's all good.

This past week, Honey Maid acknowledged their conservative critics with a follow up ad, which perfectly, and lovingly, tells One Million Moms to go pound sand. It probably didn't hurt that positive reactions to the original ad outnumbered negative ones by a 10 to one margin, so Nabisco pretty much felt safe with the new ad.

It's a nice follow-up ad that has gone viral, is nice, and probably helped to sell even MORE Honey Maid graham crackers.  So the ad agency is doign their job well, too.

Here's the lovely ad:

Odd Gay Discrimination Lawsuit Roils Small Vermont Town

Here where I live in Vermont, people are pretty good dealing with gay people like me and my husband Jeff.

From WPTZ: The two Barbaras involved in
an anti-discrimination lawsuit against the
town of Addison, Vermont.  

I rarely hear people act in a bigoted way toward us, and while I'm sure some people don't like our orientation, we don't hear from them often.

We know a few homophobes could make things ugly for us, but so far, knock on wood, things are pretty good.

But it can get ugly even in gay-friendly Vermont.  A sad, surprising lawsuit, filed last week, is a case in point, if the allegations in the lawsuit prove true.

The couple, Barbara Ernst and Barbara Supeno, live in the incredibly scenic, little town of Addison, Vermont.

The area is gorgeous. It's in the southern Champlain Valley, with a landscape of rolling farmlands and patches of woods. The Green Mountains rise to the east, the Adirondacks to the west. In between is Lake Champlain, and the Barbaras, as their friends call them have a place on the shore of the lake.

It sounds absolutely idyllic, but for them, not really, apparently.

According to television station WPTZ in Plattsburgh, N.Y/Burlington, Vermont, the Barbaras have filed a lawsuit against some of their neighbors and some town officials, saying there's been a concerted effort to drive them out of town because they are gay. 

The couple's attorney, David Bond, said some neighbors, and town leadership are trying to run them out of town.

According to WPTZ:

"It's entirely based on their sexual orientation," Bond said. "Neighbors insulted them, made obscene gestures to them. There were dead animals left on their property.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Bond claims town leadership tried to push the women out of town."

Part of the problem might be that the chairman of the town selectboard is Jeff Kaufmann. (In small Vermont towns, the chairman of the selectboard is kind of like the position of mayor) Kaufmann is also Addison's zoning and planning administrator, which is the go-to guy to get a permit to say, add a porch onto the house, or build a fence or a handicapped accessibility ramp.

Kaufmann is also a Baptist minister. Some Baptist ministers are pretty hostile toward gay people, but I don't know if Kaufmann is. He declined to comment on the lawsuit, according to WPTZ and other media sources.

In any event, a lot of people might be surprised to see such a lawsuit come out of Vermont.

The state has a reputation as being quite liberal, and has been in the forefront of granting gays rights such as marriage and anti-discrimination laws.

But, like everywhere, Vermont has subsets of religious evangelicals, closed minded souls and a scattering of simple, homophobic bigots.

Life in Vermont for the LBGT community, then, isn't always a Nirvana of acceptance good friendly vibes.

Most Vermont towns are small.  They often have cliques, and some of those cliques basically run everything in town.  And it's amazing what damage or disruption a clique in a small Vermont village can cause if said group is incompetent, stupid, mean-spirited, ignorant or comprised of bullies.

That kind of ridiculousness doesn't happen too, too often, but it does happen.

And that might be what's going on with the Barbaras of Addison.

I don't know the selectboard or zoning administrators in Addison. I don't know whether this lawsuit has merit. We'll find that out eventually. Part of it could be the Barbaras' personalities somehow rubbed people in Addison the wrong way, that kind of thing happens.

Then again, the Barbaras might be the sweetest people in the world, and some people in the town of Addison are homophobic trolls.  Given the allegations in the Barbaras' lawsuit, homophobic trolls in Addison seem like they might be the culprits.

Mere personal dislike of the Barbaras probably wouldn't lead to the following, as alleged in the lawsuit:

• The town wouldn't response to grievances they filed about the neighbors' harassment.

• The Barbaras tried to apply for a permit to install a handicap ramp for Supreno's mother. The couple need to get the permit to avoid a $100 fine, but the town clerk refused to accept the application.

• A weird letter, written by someone who is grammatically and spelling challenged,  circulated in town that said the Barbaras are scam artists and that they pretended to be nice, involved people to cover up their "devious and vicious behavior." 

• An attorney got a weird letter that was purported to be from the Barbaras (it wasn't) that said the couple love screwing around with lawyers by obtaining attorney's services, then never paying up.

• The couple needed to have a hearing to get permission to put up a fence around their property to fend off their offensive neighbors. Two public hearings were held regarding the fence, but nobody from the town bothered to tell the Barbaras when and where the hearings were. 

So the bottom line is, homophobia ain't dead, and bigots find ways around anti-discrimination laws, and if this lawsuit has merit, there goes your proof.

The LBGT community has made lots of strides toward equality, but it'll take a lot more work to change everybody's minds.

Gruff Sportcaster In Dallas Offers The BEST Reaction To Gay Likely NFL Pick

The sports world, and a lot of the rest of the world has been abuzz for a week now with the news that Mizzou football star Michael Sam is gay.   

Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen has
this whole Michael Sam gay thing
figured out, brilliantly.  

And he's likely to become the first openly gay NFL player. Lots of people are fine with this and feel like it doesn't matter, as long as the guy can play a decent game of football.

A few people have been weirded out by it, for no good reason.

OMG! What if he sees me naked in the shower, a few big, supposedly tough (but squeally and wimpy) NFL guys are saying.

Um, he'll probably ignore you? You're probably not his type anyway.

Along comes Dale Hansen, the gruff no-nonsense sportscaster for television station WFAA in Dallas to put the issue to rest, brilliantly. No further comment from me, because Hansen says everything perfectly:

World's Worst Restauranteur Hates "Freaks and F***gots" And Almost Everyone Else

If the top item on your life's bucket list is to enjoy a restaurant meal at Gary's Chicaros in Enid, Oklahoma, you'd better hurry up, big time.

Gary James, owner of Gary's Chicaros in
Enid, Oklahoma, might soon be facing
some legal issues over alleged discrimination.  

The place has been in business for 44 years, but I predict it will close soon.

Why? Because it seems the owner of the place, Gary James, appears to hate almost everybody, according to television station KFOR in Oklahoma City. 

It now seems inevitable that someone will file a discrimination complaint against the restaurant and you will no longer have the chance to sit down to some grub and listen to Gary James um, compelling thoughts on gays, blacks, lazy people, people with disabilities and a host of other n'er do wells he hates.

This whole thing started recently when a customer named Matt Gard, who said he'd been stopping by Gary's Chicaros for years, was turned away because he now has a disability.  Though James said something about Gard's friends being loud, but who knows?

Gard told KFOR that James doesn't like to serve people with disabilities, minorities, gay people and others. It's really quite a list.

For his part, James pretty much admited to KFOR he doesn't like people with disabilities.

"Well, if you work, you own a business, pay your taxes, you're more than welcome here. If you're on welfare, stay at home and spend my money there."

Um, if they're spending your money, Gary James, wouldn't you want them to spend it in your restaurant, so you get some of it back?

In 2009, he told News9 in Oklahoma that he is not homophobic or racist, he just doesn't want gay people in his restaurant. 

He also said at the time that anyone who wears a hat inside a building is gay. Um, I know plenty of people who I've seen wearing hats inside buildings, and I never thought they were gay. Neither did they.

Maybe they have different rules and signals in Oklahoma. The closest I've been to Oklahoma is South Dakota, which is pretty much as Midwestern as the Sooner State. I've eaten in restaurants in South Dakota where plenty of guys were wearing hats and few, if any, seemed gay to me.

And I thought I had a pretty good gaydar. But not as good as Gary James' apparently.

There was a flurry of attention toward James and his attitudes toward all kinds of people Different From Him back in 2009 when he was running for Enid City Council, but that attention died with a wimper.

This time, however, that pesky Internet is flaring up big time with the latest stuff that's going on with Gary James' attitudes. What started as a good local story from KFOR has now swept across the Internet. Popular aggragate sites like Gawker and Wonkette have seized on it, and it will be minutes before the main stream media catches up with it.

So there will be an outcry. Someone will file a discrimination lawsuit and Gary's Chicaros will probably be no more. (Already, KFOR posted a helpful link on their Gary Chicaros story to the Oklahoma Attorney General's office)

Gary James will become a hero to the allegedly oppressed far right wing and the rest of us will forget about him.

But some of us will have fun with him first.  Already it's started.  For instance, the Gary's Chicanos Facebook page has been hacked.

It is now listed on Facebook as a gay bar and fake "reviews" are pouring in with (definitely untrue but sarcastic and hilarious) stories about how Gary James likes having, um, intimate contact with certain male customers.

So, next time you're in Enid, Oklahoma, it looks as if you'll need to find another place for food and cocktails, because Gary Chicaros days seem to be numbered.

Gay Marriage Skit Offers Evidence "Homophobic" South Not So Bad?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart recently had a segment in which they sent two men posing as a gay couple to Mississippi and Alabama to see what the public's reaction would be.

A man in the foreground congratulations
two other men posing as a gay couple in
the Deep South  

The two states are regarded as the least likely to allow or even consider gay marriage anytime soon.

The stereotype is the states are populated by hopeless, right wing, evangelical, closed minded homophobes.

Yee-hah! Let the party begin with this skit.

Maybe some of the politicians in the Deep South are like that, but the Daily Show segment offers anecdotal evidence and hope the general public might be more accepting

The "gay" couple was sent to a carnival, a livestock show and a photo booth where they did the whole PDA thing. Nobody flinched and some passersby were nice to them.

Then,  the pair went to the iconic southern cliche restaurant Waffle House where one proposed to the other.

In each place, people either ignored them or gave them a round of applause.

The Daily Show skit played on southern stereotypes. The people in Alabama and Mississippi didn't.  At least the onces on the Daily Show.

I have no illusions.  Some of the people in the Jon Stewart skit maybe didn't like gay people, but they kept quiet to be polite.

And there are hateful people everywhere who at best detest gay people and at worst want to kill them.

Just ask the morons who physically attacked a straight guy in Omaha for the Cardinal Sin of defending another guy in drag.  Or the 30 or so people murdered each year in the United States in homophobic hate crimes.

Or the zillions of people who can still be fired or denied housing because they are gay.

But the anti-gay politicians and the right wing blowhards who are the loudest are just trying to scare up votes and money. They're Internet trolls without actually being on the Internet.

I'm beginning to thinnk most people might be pretty decent. So thanks to the Jon Stewart people for pointing that out.

Anyway, here's the Jon Stewart video::

Sue The Gays To Make Them Straight?

I was definitely perplexed to say the least when I ran across a little item last week when I was researching extremist right wing crazies.

This guy is trying to figure out how to
sue the gays. 

Yes, I'm a masochist, deal with it.

This guy named Rick Scarborough of some outfit called Tea Party Unity said he had a great idea.  He doesn't like gay people, so he and other activists say they should file a class action suit to stop the gays.

His buddy Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Trust About Homosexuality (well, maybe not truth, necessarily) wholeheartedly agreed.  So that's two people who think this is a great idea.

The lawsuit would sort of be like those class action lawsuits against tobacco companies a few years ago that accused the tobacco companies of basically selling death.

I'll leave aside for a moment that political end of his idea and go straight (ha!) to the practical side.

Scarborough didn't offer a plan as to exactly whom to target in the lawsuit. The tobacco companies were easy. Find which big companies sold tobacco  products and have at it.

But last I checked, there was no company selling "gay"

Who would you sue? Every gay person out there? That could get complicated. How would you find them all? Assuming you could win the lawsuit, how would you collect settlement money?

Various Web sites that featured this bit of news had helpful comments from readers offering Scarborough potential targets.

At Towlerroad, someone suggested suing all straight people, because they're the ones who make babies, some of whom turn out gay.

Others suggested anti-gay groups sue themselves, since many of them have workers or volunteers who are self-loathing closeted gay people.

How would the results of the lawsuit work? The tobacco lawsuits led to controls on the sale of cigarettes. What would the demands on gays be in this lawsuit?  Would gay people have to stop having sex? Or register with Peter LaBarbera before they engaged in sexual contact?

You'd like that, wouldn't you, Peter?

Rest assured, quite a few people who associate with the Tea Party think Scarborough's idea is nuts.

David Webb of Tea Party 365 had this to say:

"Rick Scarborough is not a Tea Partier....He is not a Tea Party spokesperson, no matter what he, or the media, wants people to believe."

Well, that's a relief. I was afraid someone would shut down the government again until they found a way to sue all the world's gay people and make them straight.