The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
Last night, Allegheny County Council became the 15th municipality in Pennsylvania to extend non-discrimination protections to LGBTQ persons through the creation of a Human Rights Commission. The 8-6 votes was not strictly along party lines, but was a significant advance considering five years ago the measure had 2 supporters on Council.
The original ordinance was amended twice to insert "religious" exemptions and then to eliminate unconstitutional elements which would have created a registry of homophobic religious organizations and specifically permit public funding of discriminatory bodies. The final version, modeled after Philadelphia's ordinance, does allow exemptions but makes no mention of funding which allows compliance clauses to be tied to individual funding contracts.
The debate was heated, but civil rights progress has taken a step forward in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Kudos to the hard work of the many folks who worked on this project.
Now onward to the House Bill expanding the Commonwealth's protections to include sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
I was at my activist meeting the other day when one of my activist buddies showed me an interesting snippet from a Woodrow Wilson speech.
The speech was given at a women's suffrage meeting in 1916.I wish I had noted the book that I copied the speech (simply for proper citation purposes).
"...we rejoice in the strength of it, and we shall not quarrel in the long run as to the method of it. Because, when you are working with masses of men and organized bodies of opinion, you have got to carry the organized body along. The whole art and practice of government consists not in moving individuals, but in moving masses.
It is all very well to run ahead and beckon, but after all, you have got to wait for them to follow. I have not come to ask you to be patient, because you have been, but I have come to congratulate you that there was a force behind you that will, beyond any peradventure, be triumphant and for which you can afford a little while to wait."
Of course, President Wilson did not endorse a federal amendment for the women's right to vote at this suffrage meeting, though he would endorse women's suffrage publically two years later.
At the July 1st commission meeting, the Oakland Park City Commission, working with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), American Veterans for Equal Rights (AVER), Fight OUT Loud, and many other organizations, brought forward a city resolution calling for the President and the United States Congress to adopt the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009 (House Resolution 1283), which eliminates the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) policy, which bans brave and dedicated Gay and Lesbian Servicemembers from serving openly in the Military.
The resolution passed unanimously.
SLDN has been working on a nation-wide effort to get local governments to pass resolutions requesting adoption of this Federal legislation to show the overwhelming support for lifting the discriminatory ban. Brian Fricke and Matt Sampson, with SLDN and AVER, have been working with various local officials, including me and Vice Mayor Flippen of Wilton Manors, to pass these resolutions.
Oakland Park becomes only the second city in Florida and the eleventh in the Country to pass such a resolution.
The other day, I received in the mail the following "2009 Priority Issues Survey" from the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee). The idea is to gather our input ("us" being happy Democratic donors, presumably) about which topics the Democrats in the House should prioritize in the coming year or so.
The brochure is reprinted below in its entirety. See if you can guess WHICH Democratic issue, heavily campaigned on by Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential race, is completely missing.
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.
The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff."
The offer - which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters - is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.
Honestly, the MSM looks down on blogs as some sort of quasi-news sewer, but we've haven't the budget or access to go onboard an ethics Titanic like this. Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth called the event a "salon" -- she was seeing dollar signs before the whole shebang was exposed and was canceled.
You see, the WaPo is thirsty for cash (the paper lost $19.5 million in the first quarter). Look at this incredible naked pitch that went out:
"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate...Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth. ... Bring your organization's CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders."
A passenger who stripped naked aboard a Los Angeles-bound US Airways jet, forcing its diversion to Albuquerque, will be arraigned Thursday and possibly be ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination, the FBI confirmed today.
Keith Anthony Wright, 50, a resident of New York, was being held in federal detention in New Mexico pending his appearance in court on charges of interference with a flight, said FBI spokesman Darrin Jones in Albuquerque.
"He removed his clothing during the flight and refused to put them back on," Jones said of the disruption aboard US Airways Flight 705 on Tuesday.
What websites were you on before Pam's House Blend, and which forums/blogs are you currently on?
I began in chatrooms on Gay.com, usually in the POZ (HIV/AIDS) room. I was on John Edwards' site before that the Kerry/Edwards' site, then that morphed to Common Grounds/Common Sense. I was on Huffington Post, and still post there. There was a bizarro site Volcanvo I was on for awhile, (I don't recommend it.)
If this questions doesn't generate interest just post things which interest you, that don't fit another thread....I'm Easy....not cheap but I'm easy.
(Top Ten Top Ten) 1 - You are a christian fundamentalist when you actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.
2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
Copyright prevents me from posting the other seven, but they are equally valid and funny.
Seaman August Provost, 29, is dead. His body was found on June 30 at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in San Diego, CA. At this time the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is calling it an apparent homicide and are looking for a "person of interest" in custody. There is evidence that this could be a hate crime.
Rep. Bob Filner (D-Chula Vista) said today he had asked the U.S. Department of Defense and the Marine Corps to investigate whether the killing of a sailor, who was gay, at Camp Pendleton was a hate crime...Gay leaders in San Diego had asked Filner to intervene. Nicole Murray-Ramirez, chairman of the San Diego Human Relations Commission, said Provost's family said the sailor had been harassed by other personnel on the base.
Filner said initial indications are that Provost was shot and his body burned. He said his committee also will investigate the case.
Provost's partner found out about the death from a newspaper reporter, Murray-Ramirez said.
Provost enlisted in the Navy in March 2008, and was a boatswain mate seaman who worked on hovercrafts. Provost's Facebook page confirms he is 29-years-old and interested in "men and women." On his MySpace page, Provost referenced dating men and identified another Houston man as "the love of my life."
...The homicide of August Provost III came on the same day Defense Secretary Robert Gates claimed the Pentagon hoped to make "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" investigations-and attitudes toward gay and lesbian servicemembers-more "humane."
Well, now this young man is dead. So much for humane policy. HRC, which has just launched a DADT repeal tour, put out this statement:
"Our thoughts are with the Prevost family at this time as authorities work to learn what happened in the early morning hours this past Tuesday," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. "The Human Rights Campaign has confirmed Congresswoman Susan Davis has been in touch with officials at the base and is tracking the investigation. We know that every day members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community are targeted for simply being who they are. Furthermore, our gay or lesbian soldiers struggle with the extra burden of not serving openly and honestly based on the discriminatory policy of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' As we monitor the investigation, our community must continue to raise awareness on a law that we know hurts military readiness and national security while putting American soldiers at risk."
In the SD Union-Tribune, the real crux of the story is revealed:
Provost's partner, Kaether Cordero, said Provost was openly gay but kept his private life quiet for the most part.
"People who he was friends with, I knew that they knew," Cordero said from Houston. "He didn't care that they knew. He trusted them."
Provost had recently complained to family members about a person who was harassing him, so they advised him to tell his supervisor, said his sister, Akalia Provost of Houston.
If Provost was gay, then clearly if he went to complain to his supervisor, he would have to "Tell" about his sexual orientation. How on earth are service members placed in this position supposed to ask for help? I hope someone asks Robert Gibbs about this at the next presser -- or the President or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. How should a harassment dilemma of this kind should be addressed if one is to be truthful? If Provost's death turns out to be a hate crime, the blood will be on their hands for the inaction -- leaving gays and lesbians in uniform in harm's way for the sake of affirming homophobia in the ranks.
CORRECTION: An astute Blend reader has notified me that the reporting deadline for expenses incurred in June by referendum PACs is July 10th. I've re-read the PDC documents, and he is correct. I have, therefore, made a regrettable error in calling out Stickney and Randall for not yet reporting their printing and related expenses. They have not earned the accusation of hiding their campaign expenditures. I am sorry for this error and I do apologize.
Now the question is, do I yank the diary, or leave it up with corrections? After some deliberation, I have decided to leave it up but strike out the erroneous text and correct the title. This is my way of accepting responsibility for my mistake. However, I will remove the diary entirely if either Gary Randall or Larry Stickney request me to via e-mail.
Larry Stickney...said he printed 60,000 of the R-71 jumbo petitions June 5 and circulated all but 2,000 by Friday.
Gary Randall subsequently pitched an additional plan to "[P]ut out a large mailing...to over 50,000 homes that are known to be social conservatives. We want mail a petition to every home on that list.". That plan would have required printing 50,000 additional petitions. The fate of the plan remains unremarked upon by Randall.
So we know that Stickney's and/or Randall's organization(s) paid for the printing of 60,000 petitions, and perhaps up to another 50,000. To date, however, Stickney's organization Protect Marriage Washington has onlyreported $3.61 in expenses. Randall's Faith & Freedom PAC, which is "dedicated" to the referendum effort, has onlyreported $1,553.51 in expenses, $1,119 of which Gary Randall apparently paid to himself to set up a redundant website. Neither organization reports design or printing expenses. It's hard to believe that 60,000 to 110,000 petitions got printed for free.
(SF Gate) Behold, the ongoing, increasingly startling research: homosexual and bisexual behavior, it turns out, is rampant in the animal kingdom. And by rampant, I mean proving to be damn near universal, commonplace across all species everywhere, existing for myriad reasons ranging from pure survival and procreative influence, right on over to pure pleasure, co-parenting, giddy screeching multiple monkey orgasm, even love, and a few dozen other potential explanations science hasn't quite figured out yet. Imagine.
Are you thinking, why sure, everyone knows about those sex-crazed dolphins and those superslut bonobo monkeys and the few other godless creatures like them, the sea turtles and the weird sheep and such, creatures who obviously haven't read Leviticus. But that's about it, right? Most animals are devoutly hetero and straight and damn happy about it, right?
Wrong.
New research is revealing so many creatures and species that exhibit homosexual/bisexual behavior of some kind, scientists are now saying there are actually very few, if any, species in existence that don't exhibit it in some way. It's everywhere: Bison. Giraffes. Ducks. Hyenas. Lions and lambs, lizards and dragonflies, polecats and elephants. Hetero sex. Anal sex. Partner swapping. The works.
Let's flip that around. Here's the shocking new truism: In the wilds of nature, to not have some level of homosexual/bisexual behavior in a given species is turning out to be the exception, not the rule. Would you like to read that statement again? Aloud? Through a megaphone? To the Mormon and Catholic churches? And the rest of them, as well? Repeatedly?
Well, you didn't need animal research to tell me the Mormon and Catholic lifestyle choices are unnatural. I can't speak for the Catholics, but my Mormon upbringing tells me the critters are mocking God's law because we can't manage to keep the sacred underwear on them.
Sean Kennedy, a young gay man in South Carolina was brutally murdered in SC in 2007 (a state with no hate crimes law). After Sean's death his mother Elke Kennedy founded Sean's Last Wish, and she has toured the nation to recount the tragic murder and to educate people about the need for federal hate crimes legislation. Here is what happened to Sean...
Stephen Andrew Moller was released from his 5-year suspended sentence on July 1. His sentence had already been reduced by two months after receiving a good behavior credit for receiving his GED while in prison.
"Again the judicial system failed they say one thing and do something else," Sean's mother Elke Kennedy said in a release. "He should have served every single day of the already short sentence, instead he was released from prison today, one week early. Where is the justice?"
Both Elke Kennedy and Joe Solmonese submitted written testimony at the hearing in support of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (S. 909). To read the testimony, visit www.HRCBackStory.org. The legislation, which was passed in the U.S. House by a vote of 249-175 in April, would provide local police and sheriff's departments with federal resources to combat hate violence. The legislation is currently awaiting a vote in the U.S. Senate.
"Sean is among many American's who are targeted just because of who they are. These crimes not only harm individuals, they terrorize entire communities," said Solmonese. "After more than a decade and nine successful votes in Congress, there is no good reason for any delay on bringing hate crimes legislation to the President's desk. We must finally pass this bill and start the important steps to erasing hate in our country."
U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), the Kennedy family's senator, recently wrote a shocking letter to local priests and pastors advocating against hate crime legislation. DeMint, who has regularly spoken out against the LGBT community, wrote the following in reference to hate crimes legislation: "Many pastors hesitate to explain that government policies have helped cause the decline of America's culture, morality and spirituality. ... I am writing you today to remind you that religious principals and biblical teachings produced the values and polices that made America exceptional, prosperous, and good."
After some thought regarding the comments moderation issue discussed in Autumn's post, and taking seriously the issue of what constitutes "silencing" or not listening to a group, it's time for Blenders who comment, not lurk, to determine whether a fully free-speech zone is actually what is desired.
Here's the scoop: from right now until 7/9:
* The ratings will be turned off.
* The three commenters who were banned in the threads in question have been reinstated; they will stay active after the experiment. That's part of the reboot.
* No baristas will moderate any front-page post or diary comments for opinion, tone, language or cross-commenter exchange of ideas or disagreement.
* The exceptions:
-- diaries created for spamming (we have some dolts who sign up to promote a product, not write a discussion post)
-- direct physical threats between commenters, or publishing of private information.
No baristas will review comments; you can email the PHB tips addy, but we will let the experiment run its course. This means that all of you now have the freedom to say anything you want in any way you want to any other Blender in the comment threads; however, so would others have that ability to do the same thing to you.
That will change the blog's character from my original intent for the short term; it will no longer be a coffee table discussion among friends within a virtual coffee shop -- the comments sections will resemble what you see on most other blogs.
That leaves civility up to you to enforce in the comment community. The results may bring some lurkers come out to share their thoughts with baristas about the change and how it plays out. People who comment are a very small fraction of the people who actually read the Blend, and regular commenters an even smaller sample. I don't know how this experiment will play out, but I think it's worth knowing what changes will occur when you're on your own.
For those of you who think moderation is the better route, you may or may not be vindicated. The feedback on how best to moderate in the other thread is interesting and predictable -- it also points out that it's a subjective matter to "know" what is or isn't acceptable, how long is too long to do something about it and what the price that should be paid and when. That's a tall order and there won't be a consensus on it.
In the last four decades since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, many American nuns stopped wearing religious habits, left convents to live independently and went into new lines of work: academia and other professions, social and political advocacy and grass-roots organizations that serve the poor or promote spirituality. A few nuns have also been active in organizations that advocate changes in the church like ordaining women and married men as priests.
Some sisters surmise that the Vatican and even some American bishops are trying to shift them back into living in convents, wearing habits or at least identifiable religious garb, ordering their schedules around daily prayers and working primarily in Roman Catholic institutions, like schools and hospitals.
And one inquiry seems to go out of its way say the nuns are simply not homophobic enough.
The second investigation of nuns is a doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella organization that claims 1,500 members from about 95 percent of women's religious orders. This investigation was ordered by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is headed by an American, Cardinal William Levada.
Cardinal Levada sent a letter to the Leadership Conference saying an investigation was warranted because it appeared that the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that it had failed to "promote" the church's teachings on three issues: the male-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the means to salvation.
The letter goes on to say that, "Given both the tenor and the doctrinal content of various addresses" at assemblies the Leadership Conference has held in recent years, the problem has not been fixed.
What are the political calculations that govern support of HR 3017, the current ENDA bill? This is what you need to understand if you want to help the bill pass.
The large number of unconfirmed in Pennsylvania is not surprising, given that Pennsylvania was a major battleground state in the 08 election. And it is here that the issues become the most sharply defined, so it is a useful object lesson for all of us. If your Representative is unconfirmed in support of ENDA, they will likely have a version of the issues that the Representatives in Pennsylvania are having. If you're not from Pennsylvania, read this and add in your own representative's name. And email this to a friend in Pennsylvania. Remember, "You've Got A Friend In Pennsylvania."
The other day, I received in the mail the following "2009 Priority Issues Survey" from the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee). The idea is to gather our input ("us" being happy Democratic donors, presumably) about which topics the Democrats in the House should prioritize in the coming year or so.
Holy crap -- 
Gee, 
Sean Kennedy, a young gay man in South Carolina 
