I've made it to the initial round for favorite progressive blogger in the Air America Cruise Contest. I have to stay in the Top 5 before the second voting round begins, so your vote is appreciated! First voting round:
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.
My state is getting over its fringe-conservative hangover, having turned Blue in the last election, but we've still got a General Assembly full of lawmakers willing to honor a bigot and homophobe like the late Jesse Helms. But not all of them. (QNotes):
Sen. Julia Boseman (D-New Hanover), North Carolina's only openly gay or lesbian state legislator, voted against a resolution honoring the life of the late Jesse Helms on Wednesday, June 10. She was the only legislator to register a vote against the honorary resolution. Twenty-six other legislators, meanwhile, sat out of the vote.
The resolution, which passed the Senate 41-1 and the House 98-0, states, "The General Assembly of North Carolina expresses its appreciation for the life and public service of Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr., and honors his memory."
..."I could have never voted in favor of a resolution honoring Sen. Helms because of his divisive history and his anti-civil-rights principles," said Sen. Floyd McKissick (D-Durham), according to an Associated Press report.
Mark Binker of the Greensboro News & Record saw members of the legislative black caucus just walked off of the floor rather than vote.
"This is just the best place for me to be right now," said Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat and chairman of the caucus.
Rep. Earl Jones, a Greensboro Democrat, was more evasive: "I'm just taking a break," he said.
Why did all those legislators vote for the resolution honoring the late racist and gay-hater? Well, as a U.S. Senator, he brought home the bacon, was very responsive to constituents, and well, the genteel folks in the General Assembly don't like to disrespect the dead.
Quite frankly all of the people who died of AIDS during Helms's tenure in the Senate, where he disapproved of funding to fight the spread of the epidemic were disrespected -- and he slept like a baby at night.
He said gay men were "weak, morally sick wretches" who contracted the disease through their own "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."
In 1988, Helms said, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."
At today's memorial for John Hope Franklin at Duke University, playwright Emily Mann -- daughter of historian Arthur Mann, a close friend of Franklin's -- related one of many illuminating personal stories about the pioneering historian and scholar. In a conversation about the North Carolina political landscape, someone asked Franklin "Where did Jesse Helms come from?" Franklin quickly replied, "From hell" -- "not missing a beat," Mann said.
It was a sentiment shared by many African-Americans, civil rights allies and others in North Carolina. Helms rose to prominence in the 1960s for his vitriolic rants against integration on WRAL TV. His Old South views never really changed: Into the 1990s, he was still giggling at the word "nigger" ...
One wonders what John Hope Franklin would have thought about the North Carolina General Assembly's decision this week to pass a resolution honoring Helms by overwhelming margins.
The text of the resolution -- which passed 41-1 in the Senate and 98-0 in the House -- skips past Helms' media bromides for segregation, describing his TV career as one "devoted ... to the highest standards of journalism."
Helms is also praised in the bill for his "unyielding commitment to integrity and the principles of faith, freedom, and the power of free enterprise" and called "a leading historical figure of our times."
Oh lord. On his Sirius Satellite Radio OutQ show, Mike Signorile had a makeup/cosmetic correction specialist on the show, "Brian in Massachusetts," on last week. Several years ago, he started offering a service for straight men who liked to cross-dress, tutoring them in makeup skills while videotaping them, and the client could then take the instruction video home to use in private. After putting an ad in the Boston Phoenix:
"Curious about cross-dressing? Professional makeup artist, totally non-sexual video instruction. Totally discreet."
Brian booked over 39 appointments the first week @ $300 a session. Eventually he received a call from a man staying at the Copley Plaza hotel (right next door to Brian's studio), who was southern, very nervous and worried about discretion. And the story goes on from there:
"He [Helms] picked out this big black beehive wig and I did the instruction and gave him the tape, and the next morning when I picked up the paper, I saw that Jesse Helms was in Boston staying at the Copley Plaza , and I am telling you that it was him." Brian was so worried about repercussions of the client/Helms getting paranoid about the whole matter that he shut down his service.
Of course there is zero proof that this story is true -- Brian gave the tape to the client -- so the evidence is long gone. I can tell you that I've never heard such a story down in these parts about Helms, but we have a lot of other creaky political closets down here that have yet to be opened.
Jesse Helms has died. As a native and current resident of North Carolina, even today many people I run into outside of this state who know little about it -- recognize the name Jesse Helms. He leaves a long, dark trail of professional racial bigotry (he opposed the MLK national holiday, and civil rights legislation) and homophobia (that list is so long, you don't know where to begin).
Former U.S. Sen. Jesse A. Helms, the son of a Monroe police chief who rose to national prominence as one of the leading lions of the American right, died early this morning. He was 86.
During a political career that began with his election to the Raleigh City Council in the late 1950s and included 30 years in the U.S. Senate, Jesse Alexander Helms endeared himself to conservatives throughout the country.
Helms became known as "Senator No" for his constant battles against everything from increased government spending to civil rights legislation to communism to the National Endowment for the Arts.
I viewed the late Senator many a time when he was a commentator on WRAL. For me, as a young child of color, his blunt, unforgiving, unacceptable views were distressing and surreal to watch.
Here are some quaint quotes from the former U.S. Senator, collected by the Raleigh N&O, which also has a timeline of his career:
"Unless our Negro citizens submit more easily than we predict they will, North Carolina does not have the simple choice between segregated schools and integrated schools. Our only choice is between integrated public schools and free-choice private schools. ... The decision will have been made by a very small minority of people who are hell-bent on forced integration.""
"To rob the Negro of his reputation of thinking through a problem in his own fashion is about the same as trying to pretend that he doesn't have a natural instinct for rhythm and for singing and dancing."
- Helms responding in 1956 to criticism that a fictional black character in his newspaper column was offensive.
"I shall always remember the shady streets, the quiet Sundays, the cotton wagons, the Fourth of July parades, the New Year's Eve firecrackers. I shall never forget the stream of school kids marching uptown to place flowers on the Courthouse Square monument on Confederate Memorial Day."
- Helms writing in 1956 on life in his hometown of Monroe, N.C.
His infamous "Hands" ad, which he ran during his re-election bid in 1990 against Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt, (who is black); Gantt led in the polls until this aired:
My state is getting over its fringe-conservative hangover, having turned Blue in the last election, but we've still got a General Assembly full of lawmakers willing to honor a bigot and homophobe like the late Jesse Helms. But not all of them. (
