A few years ago, in his State of the Union speech, President Bush called for a massive increase in federal spending to help fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa. At the time, I was suprised that Bush -- who is not known as a friend of AIDS victims, people of…
For many months, I knew that something horrible was haunting Sophie. Finally, one quiet night, she broke down and told me all of the details about that awful dilemma she faced several years before, while she was a prisoner in a concentration camp. Sophie had arrived at the camp with…
The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) supplies high school LGBT rights groups around the United States with a wealth of useful information, tools, and event and activity guides. For the last few years, I’ve appreciated the planning guides GLSEN provides as a source of brainstorming and public-relations hints. But looking through a GLSEN binder of open forum topics and public speaking tips recently, I came across an unusual and off-putting suggestion:
“Do NOT compare the LGBT Rights movement to the Civil Rights movement.”
Wait, what? The battle for LGBT rights mirrors the Civil Rights movement in a variety of ways. The reactionary backlash and lack of logic behind opponents’ arguments read exactly the same, complete with desperate biblical references. Take for example this judge’s ruling in Loving v. Virginia, a pre-Civil-Rights case on interracial marriage:
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
Indeed, and Almighty God also created Adam and Eve, not, as the social conservatives say, Adam and Steve. The slow social acceptance and increase in violent hate crimes look much the same, too. So what differentiates Gay Rights from Civil Rights, again?
Well, nothing really. It just ruffles a lot of (black, evangelical) feathers to make the comparison. Apparently GLSEN doesn’t …
Today's Associated Press report on the deposition testimony a former FDA commissioner sheds further light on the FDA's extended and shameful failure to approve "Plan B," the morning after pill. According to the recent testimony: The Food and Drug Administration had intended to allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B last year…
A few years ago I had an extended conversation about gay people with an evangelical man in his mid-50s. I thought that this conversation might be illuminating, in that this fellow is a decent fellow in many ways. He would make a nice neighbor, for instance. He works hard, pays his taxes, makes contributions to poor people, loves his children and abhors bigotry, at least when it involves blatant discrimination of African-Americans. On the other hand, he is deeply troubled with the “problem” of gays. For purposes of this post, I will refer to him as “Donald.”
Here’s how the conversation went:
Do gays choose to be gay? Donald is really perturbed that some people choose to engage in homosexual sex as a matter of sexual variety or perverted fun. On the other hand, he does acknowledge that there are numerous gay people who have not chosen to be gay. They were born or raised in such a way that they turned out “differently.” Donald admits that they had no choice. They have innocently found themselves attracted to members of the same sex. I asked Donald whether his God created them this way, and he shrugged.
Donald admits that many heterosexuals engage in sex that he considers degenerate or immoral. This would include oral sex, anal sex or S&M for example. Donald reluctantly admits that these people should nonetheless be allowed to marry. People who do not want to have children or who physically can’t have children should also be …