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.
I've received a few emails about the latest chapter in the "gays and Obama" saga, as it was learned that Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, a local leader in Houston's black community, Bush supporter, and senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church, will be campaigning in support of Barack Obama.
Caldwell said Saturday that he's endorsing Obama's presidential campaign because of the senator's "character, confidence and courage." He emphasized that his support is personal and not tied to his job as pastor of the large United Methodist church.
Metanoia Ministry We are pleased to announce the creation of “ The Way, The Truth and The Life”, a program created to provide Christ Centered instruction for those seeking freedom from homosexuality, lesbianism, prostitution, sex addiction and other habitual sins
...Since the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, men and women throughout the ages have attempted to fulfill these deep emotional needs outside a relationship with God. In doing this, sinful patterns of living were developed, preventing the fulfillment of these needs as God intended. If you desire to learn to live life as God designed it, you are invited to join “The Way, The Truth and The Life” program.
The goal of the program is to provide:
1. Christian Coaching.
2. Support groups for ex-gays and those in the process of coming out of homosexuality.
3. Educational workshops.
4. Information for parents, family and friends.
The objective of the program is to assist participants in understanding that change is possible. In doing this, a safe, nurturing and accepting environment will be created whereby participants will be able to deal with issues without fear of judgment or rejection. Participants will be encouraged to exercise their faith in the saving, healing and delivering power of God through Jesus Christ, and to see themselves as God sees them.
OK. What does this look like to you -- A. Another example of the Obama campaign hypocrisy toward the gay community; B. Triangulation with LGBTs to keep and gain socially conservative black votes; C. A necessary evil to reach a large segment of a community that has been allowed to foment homophobia in its ranks; D. Progress -- proof that Obama's public challenge the black community about its homophobia is wrong has not prevented pray-away-the-gay folks like Caldwell from endorsing and campaigning for him. E. All of the above.
The easy answer to the above multiple choice, of course, is E. All of those scenarios exist, and are valid opinions for folks to hold, depending on your perspective. That is, at its core, what Barack Obama has been trying to do in terms of reaching out to a broad spectrum (literally) of voters. That does, however, come at a steep price.
The tragic history of the damage causedby the ex-gay movement iswell-documented on several blogs, and any inkling that the decision to give public recognition to a proponent of such a movement by the Obama campaign as a supporter will at the very least, raise a lot of eyebrows, if not generate outright anger. The LGBT community is tired of being an ATM and told to sit patiently at the back of the bus, or worse, wait on the sidewalk as buses pass us by.
The fact is that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. In a presidential race with so many third rails - race, gender, class, sexual orientation -- all charged issues that political parties have depended upon for years to divide and conquer in close elections -- I see no way to navigate this new territory without pissing several constituencies off.
I've certainly been peeved by the ham-handed and offensive invitation of ex-gay Donnie McClurkin to headline a gospel concert in SC, but we all know what he was trying to do. Like it or not, if he is to win the Palmetto State, he would have to win some of the votes of those social black conservatives. He could have chosen to forgo that demographic on principle, but the raw math would show that there are more religious black voters than gay folks. That's the reality. Under the bus we went.
However, it felt like the chain was being jerked when, in November he posted a Call for Full Equality at The Bilerico Project to reassert his commitment to LGBT rights.
For my entire career in public life, I have brought the message of GLBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones. No other leading candidate in the race for the Presidency has demonstrated the same commitment to the principle of full equality. I support the full and unqualified repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples. I will also fight to repeal the U.S. military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, a law that should never have been passed, and my Defense Department will work with top military leaders to implement that repeal.
As President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples - whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.
If you recall, before his speech at Ebenezer on Sunday, he also raised the issue of black homophobia before an almost entirely black audience at the All-American Presidential Forum last year.
One of the things we've got to overcome is a stigma that still exists in our communities. We don't talk about this. We don't talk about it in schools. Sometimes we don't talk about it in churches. It has been an aspect sometimes of our homophobia that we don't address this issue as clearly as it needs to be.
I don't think these declarations made an awful lot of friends among the homophobic black pastors, but be that as it may, he is still drawing support from ex-gay proponents like Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell. It would be interesting to know what Caldwell thinks about Obama's call to repeal all of DOMA, and lifting the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.
It's two sides of the same coin - those LGBTs who do support Obama in spite of the McClurkin incident and now Caldwell, find they have to defend or answer for the candidate's perceived endorsement of anti-gay views held by these people by association.
Caught in the middle, by the way are those who are black and gay, particularly ones in the closet, religious, and sit in the pews of churches being assailed by homophobic black pastors. These are people afraid of being rejected by their family, their community, their firewall from the external world where race is indeed a factor in their lives. Obama's triangulation/amelioration strategy leaves these people out of the picture entirely.
Also almost completely out of the picture are white progressives, frozen by the fact that entering this fray is like walking across a field rife with landmines. They see little upside in contributing to the discussion because of the lack of engagement with either of these communities in order to navigate these landmines. They aren't helped by the defensiveness of the black community, which in some quarters exhibits itself in the "feel whites have no place in these discussions" retort, that it is a family affair. Of course, in their eyes, those who are black and gay don't exist either.
It's all a sickness, a pathology that cuts so deep that you simply don't know where to begin to address healing these wounds, never mind figure out how it can or should play out in the election of our next president. Since we don't talk candidly about these issues when it's not on the front burner (it sometimes feels like I'm one of only a handful ready to step on the third rail on a regular basis), we are left floundering, raising the room temperature to an such an uncomfortable level that everyone simply backs into their respective corners, or worse flee for the exits to avoid conflict.
Just because we don't talk about these internal divisions doesn't make them go away.
Is this any different than Huck's commercial in its approach?
My answer: not really. However, Obama is declaring his faith and its influence, but he has no intent to make this a Christian nation, or to amend the Constitution to bring it into line with "God's Law." Practically speaking, Barack Obama has been forced to toss out the God card because of the continuous torrent of emails suggesting he's some sort of Muslim Manchurian Candidate. In fact, my mother-in-law just received another one of these ridiculous missives, the content of which has been thoroughly debunked for some time now.
That said, the tactics of candidates in both parties courting Christians with such direct appeals to common faith is clearly going to continue as long as there are large areas of the country where faith is an integral part of society. The pandering to groups whose political goals that are in direct opposition to one another, such as gays and socially conservative religious black community will continue, and those groups have every right -- and duty -- to expect concrete answers of these candidates as to how they will reconcile these goals.
