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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.
--"Joe"

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An Online Magazine in the Reality-Based Community.


Former NH legislator with lesbian daughter rails againt civil unions

by: Pam Spaulding

Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 16:00:00 PM EDT


Blender Herb passed on this horror of a news story.  To set the stage, over 200 people showed up to speak before New Hampshire's Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to the measure, with 94 signing up to give their testimony in favor of it. [The first to come before the committee, incidentally, was New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson - the first openly gay bishop.]

But one of the people stepping up represents the father from hell for a gay child.  Former state senator Gary Francouer was one of many who showed up  to speak before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is how the Nashua Telegraph covered it:

Former Sen. Gary Francoeur, a social conservative from Hudson, returned to Concord to give sob-filled testimony in which he revealed his second oldest of four daughters is a lesbian.

"I am proud of each one of them, and I love each one of them very deeply. I have a great relationship with them. But my heart aches today as I watch the consequences of the sin in their lives," Francoeur, a Republican, said while choking back tears.

"Each one of my children has been taught to know what is right and what is wrong. My second daughter wasn't born gay. She chooses to be one. We live a life of choices. Each choice has a consequence: some good and some bad."

..."This issue has been settled by God thousands of times," as shown in the Bible, he said. "If this lifestyle was a sin then, then it is a sin today."

This is a sad man -- he would rather his daughter be a second-class citizen than accept that she is gay. Herb:
Francouer is a total ass.  Thank God he's no longer in the Senate.  We got rid of him a couple of years ago.  He had a lot of power a couple of years back under the last Rep governor.  Our Town of Hudson has been home to two Senate Presidents and a majority leader over the last ten years.  Up until this year all 11 of our Reps and 1 Senator were all Republican.  Now there are a couple of Dems.  It must be the water.  I'm safe - I drink bottled water.
As bad as Francoeur was, he wasn't alone spewing bible-based bigotry. Read in disbelief at some of the testimony at this hearing. The fundies really crawled out of the woodwork on this one.
"This is not the type of family structure to teach or promote to our children and future generations."
-- Rob Eifler of Chichester

"The bottom line is it's marriage and it's being pushed down people's throats."
-- Rep. Alfred Baldasaro, R-Londonderry

"If we deviate from the truth of what God's word says, we as a nation are in trouble. God's word is the only truth that we have."
-- Rev. Garry Hamilton, pastor at First Assembly of God in Manchester

"That it is your responsibility, each one of you, to lead the people of New Hampshire in the righteous path. How you vote on this legislation shows your understanding or lack of righteousness."
-- Francoeur to the committee, after thanking Hamilton for explaining "the truth of the scriptures"

"The first marriage in the history of mankind was ordained by God, and it was between one man and one woman...there's a difference between religion, which is manmade, and Christianity, which is a relationship with Jesus Christ, the son of God, with God through his son. That's a fact."
-- Rep. Dan Dumaine (R), bleating away about Christosupremacy. Two of the five committee members are Jewish.

"Just because somebody can pick and choose out of the Bible what they want to read and disregard what else they want to read doesn't make them a Christian."
-- Dumaine, going for bonus points

Pam Spaulding :: Former NH legislator with lesbian daughter rails againt civil unions
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No ham for you then....
..."This issue has been settled by God thousands of times," as shown in the Bible, he said. "If this lifestyle was a sin then, then it is a sin today."

Well I sure hope he didn't have any ham this past Easter then or else he is doomed.


Ain't that the God's honest truth...
"The bottom line is it's marriage and it's being pushed down people's throats."
-- Rep. Alfred Baldasaro, R-Londonderry

It's been pushed down my throat relentlessly as to what it is supposed to be by these bigots.


*SOB!!* i live daily with the consequence of my sin...
...as a happier, more outgoing, less fearful, and fully-realized individual pursuing a normal life.  i hope francoeurs's daughter, especially with a bigoted hypocrite of a father, feels the same way.  it's funny he mentions choices--we don't pick our families or the societies into which we are born.  some of us our lucky, others get a terrible lot.  the worst kind of people in the world are the kind who are born into privilege and then spend their lives making other people miserable.  THOSE are the choices that have dire consequences. 

The gays stole my lunch money

Francouer
A quick Google shows Francouer tied to a variety of these scary ass gun nut outfits, the ones that go spouting off, "Live Free or Die!"  Why is it these guys have to be so fucking paranoid?  They're the ones with the guns.  They're the ones with the violent rhetoric.  They're the scary ones, not us.

So true
I have never own a gun and never planned to. And I grew up in a family of hunters. If I have to fight, I'll do it with my bare fist or die trying.  I don't believe in violence unlike most of these fundies do. Shit, look at freakin Iraq. We sure didn't invade the country in a parade of peace.

[ Parent ]
I grew up in the country
Everyone had rifles.  Even my Dad, who wasn't in favor of hunting (he mainly used it for dispatching raccoons who went after the poultry).  If you want a gun, go ahead and get one.  No mainstream politicians have ever suggested complete disarmament of the American people.  I am sick and tired of people bleating on about bans on semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles as a threat to their freedom.  A rifle or a pistol can do the job just as well as some hell-fire spitting killing machine.  The collector argument doesn't hold sway either.  By that logic, one could collect child porn and say they aren't in favor of the abuse of children, they just really like photography.  These nuts have gotten away with their crazy blatherings for way too fucking long.

[ Parent ]
Familiar rhetoric
I feel for his daughter.  I heard the same exact thing when I came out (okay, okay...when my parents slung me out of the closet!).  Literally, my mother bemoaned that she worried about me having a hard life, but when I brought it to her attention that she's part of the social system that perpetuates hate against me, she turned it around as being a choice I've made so I'll have to live with the consequences.  In other words, she wasn't going to take any responsibility for being a part of the problem.  If anything bad happened to me, it was my own fault because I made a bad choice.

It's really...
...all about the love isn't it? :)

I do wonder if they ever look at the parts of the bible that are not exclusively about hate and control...


[ Parent ]
Religion Sure Strengthens Families...
NOT!

It reminds me of a story about Nathan Lane.  He eventually got the courage to tell his mother he was gay.  "I'd rather you were dead," Mrs. Lane said.  He replied, "I knew you'd understand."

=>The truth usually isn't pretty. Don't blame me for telling it.<=


Random association
"The bottom line is it's marriage and it's being pushed down people's throats."

Whenever I hear that I always think of foie gras.

"Our Liberties We Prize and Our Rights We Will Maintain" -- Iowa state motto


hmmm
I don't quite think of *that*

But it is rather vivid, isn't it?


[ Parent ]
Interesting quote:
"Each one of my children has been taught to know what is right and what is wrong. My second daughter wasn't born gay. She chooses to be one. We live a life of choices. Each choice has a consequence: some good and some bad."

I guess you just have to write some of your kids off if they turn out to be "bad choicers", right? 

It couldn't possibly be that god really DID make her that way and her nimrod father should open his mind and accept his daughter the way she is.  Why that would just be giving in to the HomoIslamoCommunoLefist conspiracy to ruin America...


what i never understand
is who should object even if it were a choice? 

Lurleen on Twitter

[ Parent ]
Lurleen, I really...
...believe it's related to the fundy idea that god cannot make a mistake, and since they see being LGBT as a "mistake", that can't agree to any biological basis for orientation.

Likewise, they feel that our "choices" should be guided by god, so if we make the "wrong" choice, it shows we are sinners/bad/satanic/etc., or some such crap.

In the end, it's all a house of cards, and if you allow one heretical idea to become accepted, the whole thing will collapse.  Whether they really consciously see it that way, or understand that basic truth at some primitive, subconscious level, I really do think it animates most of their hate...


[ Parent ]
If my father were like Francouer...
...I would be well within my rights to disown him, and I probably would.  How a father can do this to his own child, I fail to understand.

Social outrage is power protecting itself; it is not morality. -- Andrea Dworkin

When I came out to my parents
Mom and Dad weren't exactly cool with it, but at the same time they made an effort to understand.  Disowning me, or dissing me, was the furthest thing from their minds.  "Any parent who turns their back on their child is no parent at all," Mom is fond of saying.  And they didn't take the reprehensible "love the sinner, hate the sin" route.  It's a cop-out.  Instead, they knew who I was.  They took confidence in their parenting, knowing full well what sort of person they raised, and that if I was accepting a part of my life, that maybe there was a very good reason, that I was an intelligent man and was able to decide what is best for myself.  So, they took to educating themselves on the issues of sexuality, and broadened their minds.

People like Francouer are pathetic.  They have no faith in their children, no confidence in their ability to make good life choices.  I feel sorry for the senator.  It must tear him up inside, feeling that he somehow failed.  He can't see that maybe he gave his child the ability to know right and wrong, and following her conscience made a well-informed decision to live her life.  It is tragic, because he knows his daughter not at all.  I realize how lucky I am because my Mom and Dad rock.


[ Parent ]
Disowning parents
I had a friend in Alberta who was from a large fundamentalist family. When he came out as gay, he saved himself a lot of grief by immediately preemptively disowning his entire family. However, over the years some of his siblings have come around and offered him their support.

[ Parent ]
The facts, as I see them...
First - this is about civil marriage, not religious marriage.  If civil marriage is approved for same sex couples, it will not force religious institutions to perform or recognize them.

Second - this is America, not jeebus's America, not Falwell's America, not Pastor Ted's America.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Third - your religion is not my religion.  Please stop trying to push your religion down my throat...I am not going to convert to your faith, PERIOD.  If you want to life your life according to the rules your pastor/father/priest dictates, feel free to do so, it is your life.  Don't expect me to live by your rules.


You are right Laureen
Whether from choice or chance, sexual orientation and gender identity are your gifts use them well.

The only reason anyone should care about the true origins is that, sadly, if the voices of science and reason were to stop talking about it, the concern for origin wouldn't stop. It would just be entirely owned by the enemies of science and reason who blame shit like devils or, in more "sciency" appearence Freud's now-discredited theories about childhood issues. Those false theories about childhood causes are still used as science by the ex-gay ministries. So I think that the voices or reason and science might be stuck having to explain the real origins, ie genetics, hormones, puppy-love :)

But your right Laureen, the origin really doesn't matter. That the dialogue still brings it up is perhaps a clear sign, among many, that beating heterosexism is an eternal journey. Thankfully we've come far. It's our generation's call to go farther.

And you commenters are doing your job. I hope Francouer's daughter will find her own unique way to fight too. I always value the power of the individual vigilante. My experience as an introvert :)


I want to correct myself
I said, "the only reason anyone should care". I want to drop the word "should".

I should have said, "this is why we can't stop the origin talk even if we wanted to"

And Laureen and I want to.


"Just because somebody can pick and choose out of the Bible what they want to read and disregard what else they want to read doesn't make them a Christian."
I couldn't agree more!  :-)

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting." -E.E. Cummings

We found the common ground!
Yes!!!!

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