President Bush has responded to a coming-out letter from a Bush family friend, Charles Frances, founder of the gay-straight Republican Unity Coalition. Said the President: “I knew you were gay. I didn’t know how to bring it up. Let me just say we’re better friends than ever. Let me also say, I reserve the right to disagree with you on some stuff.”
According to another report, in U.S. News & World Report, the President made the following comment at a photo-op for the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group: “I know exactly who y’all are. I’m working so that people don’t have heartburn over your issue.”
“The Bush Administration might as well hear it straight, and hear it fast: Don’t you dare make a single tiny concession on homosexual marriage.” So warns publisher Joel Belz in his Right-wing World magazine. He goes on to say that if the Bush Administration fails to heed this warning, the Religious Right “will not support you in November of 2004.” (See review, Summer, 2003 for a critique of Belz and World.)
Lynne Cheney, wife of the Vice President and mother of their openly lesbian daughter, had this to say when asked on CNN about the recent Supreme Court decision knocking down laws against same-sex relations in private: “Well, it seemed to me to be exactly the right decision. I’ve been a conservative for a really long time, and it has always seemed to me to be a stretch – the idea that government has any place in bedrooms.”
Representative Dick Gephardt’s openly gay lesbian daughter is on the staff of his campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination. She was featured in a front-page story in The New York Times, November 1. The congressman grew up as a devout Baptist in segregated St. Louis and says he’s had to come a long way on gay issues. As with most of his competitors for the Democratic nomination, he disagrees with his daughter’s advocacy of gay marriage. But, she says, “I’m working on him with this issue. And I can assure you he’s listening.” Says he: “You lear4n as you go through life. You meet people and if you listen to people … you can really learn.”
“The fact of the matter is that gays and lesbians themselves do not threaten the institution of marriage. They should not be blamed or made scapegoats for the weakening of the fundamental institution of marriage. Men and women, husbands and wives by the millions, who care more for Mercedes-Benzes and four-car garages than for teaching their children values and helping with their homework, have done a fine job of that, thank you.” This is the opinion of former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, the primary sponsor of the antigay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) signed into law by then President Clinton. Barr made his remarks in an interview in Atlanta this summer.
“Our entire civilization will come tumbling down” if gay marriage becomes legal. That’s the warning of a coalition of anti-gay marriage crusaders – in the words of Sandy Rios of Concerned Women of America. Other groups who have joined together to make the Constitutional Amendment against gay marriage the No. 1 issue in the 2004 election are Christian Coalition, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Eagle Forum (whose founder’s son is openly gay)
The pioneer of Canadian Christian television and host of “100 Huntley Street” resigned to give his full attention to keeping marriage a right for heterosexuals only. The 67-year-old David Mainse, sometimes called “the Pat Robertson of Canada,” has turned over his television duties to his son, Ron, and says he’s convinced it’s not too late to stop homosexuals from marrying each other.
Leading figures of the Religious Right are meeting to strategize against gay marriage. Their theme is “Marriage: One man and one woman.” They represent Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, the Southern Baptist Convention, Eagle Forum, Empower America and the National Religious Broadcasters. .Activist Paul Weyrich says he’s never seen such focused energy among these leaders. But according to Glenn T. Stanton of Focus on the Family: “We’re upset that [the Federal Marriage Amendment] doesn’t solve the problem of the erosion of marriage.” And conservative lawyer Paul Fein, writing in the Washington Times, argued: “The amendment would enervate self-government, confound the cultural sacralization of traditional marriage and child-rearing, and clutter the Constitution with a nonessential.”
According to Right-wing publisher Joel Belz, the antigay lobby fears that if what it considers a soft antigay marriage amendment is not successful, an even softer version will be offered by the White House. Attorney General John Ashcroft has left open the prospect of civil unions for gay people if the proposed marriage amendment passes. He said on Fox on August 3: Civil unions “is a very complex question that I’m not going to make a recommendation on.” Belz quotes Bill Bennett as saying: “We might as well say what we really want. We don’t want homosexual marriage – but we also don’t want faux marriage [i.e. civil unions].” Belz quotes Jerry Falwell’s saying: “If we can’t win the whole thing, we ought to just forget it. Let’s batten down the hatches and wait for the bell to sound for our society.”
“Families continue to be assaulted openly and viciously [with] gender being confused and traditional roles being repudiated,” according to Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Mormon’s governing Quorum. He was speaking of calls for same-sex marriage.
Legislators in Canada, Taiwan and Poland are seeking to provide for same-sex marriage. If their proposed laws pass, these nations will join the ranks of the Netherlands and Belgium in permitting same-sex marriage.
The Swedish Lutheran Church, that country’s national church, has come closer to endorsing same-sex marriage, according to the church’s Archbishop K. G. Hammar. He says that more theological work must be done before a final decision is made next year.
The Nigerian Anglicans have issued a statement condemning gay marriage as of the devil. “We totally reject and renounce this obnoxious attitude and behavior. It is devilish and satanic. It comes directly from the pit of hell. It is an idea sponsored by Satan himself and being executed by his followers and adherents who have infiltrated the church.”
The first openly gay man has been consecrated a bishop of the Episcopal Church. The operative word is “openly.” He is V. Gene Robinson and he will be the new bishop of New Hampshire. In the service of consecration, held on November 2, He was handed the symbols of office by people close to him: his stole and chasuble by his parents, his gold miter by his daughters and partner, and his shepherd’s crook by his predecessor. Robinson noted that he was only one of all “who find themselves at the margins.”
Predictably, antigay protesters showed up to denounce him and his supporters. An Episcopal priest from Pittsburgh went to the microphone and read what he said was a list of the sexual practices of gay men. A lay person from Ashland, N.H. said: “We must not proceed with this terrible and unbiblical mistake which will not only rupture the Anglican Communion; it will break God’s heart.” Outside, the bizarre Fred Phelps and followers carried their trade-mark signs: “God Hates Fags.”
Archbishop Peter J. Akinola of Nigeria responded to Robinson’s consecration by stating: “We deplore the act of those bishops who have taken part in the consecration, which has now divided the church.” Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya has announced that his church will no longer have anything to do with the American wing of Anglicanism, adding: “The Devil has clearly entered our church.”
While most Anglican leaders in Africa and Asia are vehemently antigay, in no small part out of fear of the competitive encroachments of militantly antigay Islamism, the Primate of South Africa, Archbishop Winston Njongonkulu Ndungame, has chastised his fellow African bishops for their “arrogance and intolerance” on homosexuality.
“Homosexuality, as we understand it as an orientation, is not mentioned in the Bible.” This comment was made by the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Frank Griswold, responding in September to antigay members of the denomination.
The London Guardian says the Archbishop of York has told conservative Anglicans to “pipe down.” Archbishop David Hope thinks they “should chatter less and contemplate more. ,,,Where is what evangelicals used to call the ‘quiet time?’”
Lately, the antigay Anglicans have been using extreme comparisons in their denouncing of gay people. For example, a vicar from Newcastle, a senior member of the hard-line Reform movement, says that gay rights people are akin to “concentration camp commanders” and another conservative calls them “modern Jezebels [who] have to be disciplined.”
A growing network of gay-supportive Pentecostal churches is reaching out to Pentecostal Christians who have been rejected elsewhere within the Pentecostal family due to their homosexuality. Reconciling Pentecostals International has affiliated congregations in Arizona, California, Florida, South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky and Indiana. RPI is headquartered at Reconciling Pentecostal Assembly in Scottsdale, Arizona. The charismatic flagship magazine, Charisma, in its November issue, took note of the “increasing number of ‘welcoming’ churches that describe themselves as Spirit-filled.” RPI is found at www.reconcilingpentecostals.com.
The United Methodist’s highest court has ruled that a lesbian pastor must undergo a new investigation. Though two lower courts had declined to press charges against Karen Dammann, it appears that she will now face a church trial for defying the denomination’s ban against gay and lesbian clergy. She is, for now, employed at the First United Methodist Church of Ellensburg, Washington.
“The Dalai Lama explicitly condemns homosexuality, as well as all oral and anal sex. His stand is close to that of Pope John Paul II, something his Western followers find embarrassing and prefer to ignore.” This is noted in a New York Times Op-Ed piece by Patrick French, formerly with the Free Tibet Campaign. He reports that the Buddhist leader’s American publisher “asked him to remove the injunctions against homosexuality from his book, Ethics for the New Millennium, for fear they would offend American readers, and the Dalai Lama acquiesced.”
Israel will be the site of the Second World Pride celebration, scheduled for 2005. The first such event was held in 2000 in Rome and sponsored by Interpride. There have been gay pride parades in Jerusalem in the last two years.
New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind asks: “What’s next? Do we legalize bestiality? Do we legalize incest? We’re moving in that direction. God knows there are people out there who want to legalize bestiality and incest.” Presumably, the children of Adam and Eve married each other. But are cats and cat lovers demanding a right to marry each other? While this long-time antigay Democrat makes his preemptive strike against incest and bestiality by attacking gay marriage, his fellow politicos are cautious in criticizing his “disappointing” remarks (Sheldon Silver) with which I “couldn’t disagree more strongly,” (Charles Schumer). But out-lesbian (and Jewish) fellow Assembly member Deborah Glick, Democrat from Manhattan, says she believes Hikind “understood how inflammatory his language was. I don’t believe he’s a stupid man. It was self-evident that this is about getting headlines and not engaging in debates.”
Gay marriage is acceptable to Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism and Conservative Judaism is divided on the issue. Orthodox Judaism is opposed.
Islamic planners of an interfaith conference cancelled a host after discovering he’s gay. The conference, held in early October at the University of British Columbia, was organized by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at of British Columbia. The cancelled host, Tim Stevenson, is a city councillor and an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada.
After he was dropped, the Hillel Foundation, a Jewish group, dropped out in protest. A scheduled speaker, Orthodox Rabbi Ross Singer, voiced his disagreement with the removal of Stevenson while registering that that does not mean he endorses a “homosexual lifestyle,” according to The Vancouver Sun.
The First Conference on Homosexuality in Iranian Society was held at UCLA in November. Some of the topics discussed were: “Homosexuality and the Iranian Family,” “Homosexuality in Iranian Society and Culture,” “Voices of Middle Eastern Gay and Lesbian Immigrants in the U.S.,” and “Applying for Asylum in the United States.” The conference was sponsored by the Iranian GLBT association, UCLA’s GLBT Campus Resource Center, UCLA’s Office of Residential Life and the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center.
Sister Wendy Beckett is interviewed in the October issue of A&U, a magazine focused on HIV/AIDS. Columnist Ruby Comer ran into the PBS art series guide during a visit to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and asked her about her involvement with the AIDS epidemic. “My only involvement has been that of prayer.” Asked what “advice about HIV prevention [she has for] young kids who are coming of age today,” Sister Wendy replied: “I have no advice that they have not already heard. Advice does not get us far, compared with accepting responsibility for what we do. No one can live life for us, and the loneliness is an essential element in growing into the courage and determination that mark one as mature.”
Dolly Parton graces the cover of A&U’s July issue. Asked why other country musicians have not been as supportive of the AIDS community as she has been, Parton replies: “I think country musicians, in general, have not been as involved in the fight because many of them come from the country like I did. Maybe there were [fewer people with AIDS] or … maybe those who contracted it moved off to the city for care or to avoid family conflicts over their lifestyle.” She adds: “ ‘Gay’ isn’t something you do. It is something you are! Of course, in the beginning everyone thought it was just a gay disease, and it has taken too long to get everyone to understand otherwise.”
Asked how she deals with “life’s great challenges,” Parton mentions her song, “Hello, God” and launches into “Farther along, we’ll know all about it. Farther along, we’ll understand why.”
America’s “Bible Belt” has only a third of the country’s population but more than 40 percent of AIDS cases. The disease in the American South is increasingly “rural, female, heterosexual, and African American,” according to the latest epidemiological data. A coalition of health officials in 14 Southern states concludes that homophobia, racism and sexism plays “a huge role” in contributing to the spread of HIV because of the stigma and heterosexual denial associated with the virus in “the Bible Belt.”
Most HIV-positive, sexually promiscuous men don’t tell their sex partners of their HIV status. This is the finding of a new Louisiana-based study at Tulane University. Only one in four people tell their casual sex partners that they are HIV-positive. Though 84 percent of the participants in the study were African Americans, the lead researcher, Dr. Patricia Kissinger, says that the results are consistent with other studies on a wider range of men in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
According to the editor-in-chief of the AIDS magazine, Poz, “ ‘A condom every time’ is over, fear tactics are over, slogans are over, even the ‘crisis’ is over. You can’t live in terror of HIV forever, after all.” (January, 2003)
Elton John claims he shreds all the “Bibles sent to me saying, ‘Repent now.’” New York Post columnist quotes John’s saying: “I’m a mad shredder!”
“We came out of this [Exodus 2003] conference with many bills and little means to cover those bills.” So says Tim Sneed, Administrative Director of the “ex-gay” Exodus network in the fall issue of the movement’s newsletter. He blames the conference’s unexpectedly low attendance for the short fall. Meanwhile, the 2004 Exodus conference is announced for July at Azusa Pacific University, just prior to the scheduled western EC conference at Chapman University, also in Southern California, where a former Exodus leader, Jeremy Marks, (no longer “ex-gay”) will be a featured keynoter.
Gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile says that “ex-gay” proponent John Paulk phoned in to his radio show. Paulk “did so, he said, because he was listening and heard his name mentioned and just had to speak up.” On the radio, Signorile was discussing the case of Michael Johnston, yet another “ex-gay” who had “fallen.” Signorile writes: “Johnson, who is HIV-positive, had been exposed in Atlanta’s Southern Voice of picking up men on the Internet and having unprotected sex with them, even as he claimed he was no longer gay.” Signorile mentioned Paulk’s having been caught in a D.C. gay bar while in the city in connection with his “ex-gay” work with Focus on the Family – where he’s no longer employed.
According to Signorile, Paulk “said he listens regularly and enjoys [my] show. … And, yes, he did admit that he fights sexual desires for men, and that his feelings for men never went away, so in that sense he is not ‘cured.’” Signorile goes on: “He also admitted that Christian conservatives weren’t being honest – that they don’t ‘love’ gay people and that they certainly are on a political mission more than anything else. … All in all, it wound up becoming a bizarrely agreeable discussion.”
He was known around the Yale campus for spewing vitriol against homosexuality. According to the Yale Daily News, students met his “rants with mixed amusement and disdain.” Now the paper reports that “Brother Stephen,” as students knew him, has been arrested for offering $20 for sex with a 14-year-old boy in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Said, Cyd Cipolla, a former coordinator of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Cooperative: “I feel sorry for this man and for the boy who crossed his path.”
AND FINALLY:
Fantasies about Jesus’ sex life have been in the news lately – of both heterosexual and homosexual fabrication. An ABC News special, Jesus, Mary and DaVinci, capitalized on the popularity of Dan Brown’s new book, The DaVinci Code, an allegedly-historical conspiracy bestseller in which the Catholic Church suppresses an old story that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a sexual relationship that produced a child.
Meanwhile, a Pilgrim Press book by a United Methodist minister at Chicago Theological Seminary pushes the anachronistic notion that Jesus had a gay lover. A University of Queensland (Australia) doctoral thesis argues the equally anachronistic line that Jesus and three or four of his disciples were gay.