We're not bigots but.....

Ever notice how when people say, "I"m not prejudiced, but...." that what usually follows is a statement that proves they are precisely what they claim not to be?

In Elkton, Virginia dozens of angry citizens marched on the city council demanding they do something about a gay pride picnic. They say that they don't want the towns name associated with the event and they want the local politicians to stop it. Beverly Knight said, "I'm not racist. I'm not biased, this is a free country, but we have to be careful as to what we are going to allow attached to our names." Well, this isn't about race, so the "I'm not racist" is about as relevant as Pat Robertson. But, the biased part remains to be seen. As for attaching "our names' to the event, I note that Knight's name is not attached. She is trying to ban the rally from mentioning the town's name.

Another, "I'm-not-a-bigot-but" whiner was Tammy Hammer. She bitches, "When you say Elkton, that pertains to everybody that lives in Elkton, and we don't like that." Tammy, dear, the word for that is bullshit.

One of the local yokels, Pastor Homer from the Bible Holiness Church says his opposition is "not a position of discrimination or hate. We just don't feel like tagging it with Elkton was necessarily a reflection of Elkton values."

I did a small amount of digging that proves Homer, Bev the Bigot, and Two-faced Tammy, are just lying their asses off.

Does everybody in town attend the Elkton Church of God on E Street. Oh, no, they can't, otherwise there wouldn't be people at the Elkton Freewill Baptist Church, or the Elkton Pentecostal Church, the Elkton Presbyterian Church, the Elkton Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Elkton United Methodist Church, or the First Baptist Church of Elkton. Apparently using the world "Elkton" only means "everybody that lives in Elkton" when it comes to a gay pride event. I noticed that a local TV station said that numerous ministers—anyone want to bet they were fundamentalists?—were at the protest but they all refused to be interviewed. No doubt because they represent the churches that actually use "Elkton" in their name, proving the name doesn't have to be for everyone, but can just represent a small number of locals.

The problem with that selective demand—that only gay groups avoid using the name Elkton—proves that when these bigots insist they are not bigots, and wouldn't dream of discriminating, that the very thing they deny they are doing is precisely what they are doing. Excluding only gay groups from using the name Elkton is what discrimination means. I have to ask if everyone in town uses Elkton Family Dentistry, or if everyone goes to Elkton Eyecare, I'm pretty sure that not everyone is buried in Elkton Cemetery, and clearly most people are not residents of Elkton Manor, or go to Elkton Family & Children's Medical Center, or buy only at Elkton Pharmacy. Does everyone wash their car at Elkton Car Wash, and store the porn mags they don't want discovered at Elkton Mini Storage? We also have Elkton Emporium, Elkton Florist, Elkton Motel, and Elkton Pawn & Trading.

Now, with all these churches, and all these businesses, using the word Elkton, without even pretending to represent "all the people of Elkton," then the only possible conclusion one can draw is that these protests are precisely because the people in question dislike gay people. If Baptists, Pentecostals, doctors, florists, gravediggers and pawn shop owners all have access to the name Elkton, without asking anyone's permission first, then an attempt to exclude gay people, and only gay people, is absolute proof that Beverly, Tammy, Pastor Homer and all those other cowardly ministers are bigoted and they do want to discriminate.

As I said, the moment someone tells you, "I'm not a bigot" and then immediate says, "but...," you can safely bet that what will follow will be bigoted. Beverly, Tammy, Pastor Homer and the rest have proven my case.

Sadly, this is repeated yet again. Another kid lost.

An IQ of 152, handsome and musically talented, Nicholas Kelo, Jr., was 13-years-old when he made a fatal mistake. He quit the football team because he wanted to concentrate on his music. He joined the school band instead.

Once that happened he became the target of relentless bullying by the "macho" boys at school. Boys who would openly spit on him. His mother, Jacqueline, told the local paper that these kids assumed that any boy who would rather be in the band than play football had to be gay. And so the rumor spread. She says that after that "it spiraled out of control."

She didn't learn the severity of the bullying until after she found Nick had used a gun on himself. He was rushed to the hospital, but nothing could be done.

Nick had told her long before that if ever anything happened to him that he wanted his organs donated to others who could use them. His wish was honored, even while his life was not. In the small town of Rittman, Ohio, four other kids have killed themselves in recent years.

Jacqueline Kelo says she approached the school twice to complain about bullying before. Only after Nick's suicide did she learn that many other parents had also complained that their children were victims of school bullies.

Now clearly, wanting to play music doesn't make one gay anymore than playing football makes one heterosexual, in spite of the stereotypes. But, what if it did? Should it matter? Some people clearly think so and they are fostering the attitudes and climate that, whether they want it to or not, encourages the bullying.

We all know the "God-hates-fags" crowd from Westboro Baptist encourages the kind of hatred that allows thugs to justify their bullying. After all, if the divine creator of the universe (alleged) is willing to torment and burn gay people for eternity, what's a little bullying compared to that? The worst anti-gay bullying in school is nothing compared to what fundamentalists say God wants to do.

But, even those who shy away from outright hatred and violence, and who try to pretend they are moderate opponents to the equal personhood of gay people, are responsible. When buffoons like the over-done Jennifer Roback Morse get up in public and make outlandish claims that equality of rights of gay people will destroy the lives of children, they are sending the not-so-subtle message that gay people are evil. She told the Rhode Island legislature that if gays are allowed to marry it will end up in children "shuttling between 3 or 4 households," their lives apparently in tatters due to the evil homosexuals who want to form legal families.

The hateful rhetoric that comes out of the Right is incessant. And while almost all of them would shy away from advocating violence, even those who want gays killed, like Gary North, would say it should be done by the community (with stones, according to him). Most of the less severe bigots merely want imprisonment, or they want gay people pushed into the closet, maybe by spitting on them on the school bus. The point is that once you target one identifiable segment of the public and deem them to be "lesser than" everyone else, you encourage them to be treated that way. If you want the law to treat such people as "lesser than" everyone else, then why are you surprised when your kids do the same thing to other kids who are imagined to be gay, or who actually are? This is the logical and foreseeable result of the kind of intellectual bullying that cretins like "Dr. J" encourage.

Nor can we escape the responsibility of the schools in these cases. Exactly how can a school, filled with teachers and other adults, fail to notice these incidents? If a boy is being spit upon on the school bus was the driver really so clueless as to NOT know it was happening? And, I can't help but notice that of all such suicides that I have followed have been from students at government-controlled schools, not private schools. I don't know if there are hard numbers of not. Maybe I'm wrong. But I would think that with the high percentage of kids in private schools that we should have had such tragic cases related to those schools. So far I've seen none. I'm not saying they don't exist, just saying it is odd that they haven't surfaced to my knowledge.

Then we have this case below. Watch and read further.

The large boy on the right is Casey Heynes. Casey has been the target of bullies for years. Clearly, and stupidly, they got used to smacking him around and him taking it, not fighting back. So this scrawny little bastard with a tiny brain decides to start hitting Casey several times. Casey finally has enough, grabs the runt, picks him up over his head and body slams him to the ground. Fucking brilliant! I hope when the little prick limped home his father did the same thing to him, which is what he deserved. I suspect, instead, the parents whined and claimed their little beauty was being picked on. The video proves otherwise. He got precisely what he deserved.

Now some will say that Casey should have told the school. Right! Sort of the way Jacqueline Kelo told the school how Nick was being harassed. Better Casey smack the little asshole down than go home and put a bullet through his brain. Casey was expelled from the school.

The public has to be unrelenting with the pressure they put on the career criminals who run the government schools. These unthinking career bureaucrats have to know that bullying can't be tolerated, especially in the unfortunate cases where teachers are encouraging the bullying or engaging in it. And when a kid finally defends himself he shouldn't be the one who is punished.

Suffer the little children...

Seth Walsh is 13-years-old. If he is very lucky he will see 14.

Seth is in a coma and chances of survival are not good. Reports are sketchy but the young boy was found unconscious and not breathing. He had had tried to hang himself from a tree.

Seth was being bullied at school in Tehachapi, CA. The local television station reports that friends and neighbors "said the boy is openly gay and taunted by bullies for years, at school and at a local park."

UPDATE: Sadly I must report that Seth died .

Apparently the situation was so bad at the school that the boy went on independent study so he wouldn't have to attend classes, but his friends reported "he was still bullied outside of school."

As I have said before, the kids who bully other kids for being gay learn their attitudes from adults. As I see it, part of the blame for these suicides belongs to every adult who has said bigoted things about gay people, to every preacher who damns gay people from the pulpit, and every Republican who appeals to hatred in order to secure the votes of fundamentalist assholes.

Gay kids are vulnerable. They often feel entirely alone. Many have no place to go, no one to turn to. Many can't tell their parents because their parents hate gays. They can't seek out support easily. Seeking help may make the bullying worse.

Libertarians have to stand up for the rights of these kids, to speak out against the hatred and the prejudice. We can acknowledge that bigots have a right to believe their own stupid theology, but we don't have to condone the hate they preach. We are on morally sound ground to condemn the bigots, to name them, and to shame them. More importantly, I believe that any of us who value human life and human rights have to condemn the bigotry. We must speak out against it.

Call it political correctness if you want. I don't care. If political correctness means private, community pressure against prejudice and hatred, then I'm for it. I yearn for the day when every bigot is afraid to express their prejudices, not because they will be arrested, but because decent people will no long wish to be associated with them.

How many more kids have to kill themselves?

Yes, if you don't think gay people have the same rights that you have, then I am blaming you, in part, for this tragedy. I don't give a damn if you claim your prejudice is sanctioned by a magic man in the sky or some "holy" book. Hatred is still hatred, even if you pretend a deity sanctions it.

The adults spreading these messages are infecting their own children with the same sort of venomous hate. And those kids go into the schools and make life a living hell for other people's children. What really disgusts me is that these monsters claim they are doing this "for the children."

Who will protect the children from them? The hatred they spread, in the name of the children, is what causes young kids like Seth to hang themselves. The bigots are not protecting children but helping to kill them. Maggie Gallagher: this is, in part, your doing. Mormon prophets and elders: this is, in part, your doing. Pope Benedict the enabler: this is, in part, your doing. Knights of Columbus: this is, in part, your doing. Republicans of America: take a look, this is, in part, your doing. Fundamentalists of all faiths: be proud, this is, in part, your faith in action.

Be proud of yourselves. Relish your accomplishments. You have managed, through the spreading of your hatred, to get another school kid to try to take his own life. Aren't you just fucking wonderful!

When the theocrats in Iran executed teens for homosexuality, by hanging them, people were outraged. Theocrats in America don't like to get their hands so dirty, they prefer harassing kids until these distraught children kill themselves, allowing these "Christians" to pretend they bare no responsibility. In that sense the Iranian theocrats are at least a bit more honest.

Mel Gibson: top-notch scum.

Mel Gibson recently had his talent agent drop him as a client. Mel, previously thought of as a A-list actor, would normally be the last one dropped by a talent agency. But Gibson is pure poison.

In a nutshell the man is a vicious bigot, who holds a series of prejudices that cloud his judgment entirely.

We all know of the drunker outburst of hateful remarks he made about Jews. And Gibson has publicly expressed vicious anti-gay sentiments as well.

Now he was caught on tape screaming at former mistress about how she will be raped by a "pack of niggers." Charming, Gibson, charming.

Gibson is a right-wing moralist, who was an ultra-orthodox Catholic who funded his own church. So, like moralists in general, he cheated on his wife, had affairs, fathered children out of marriage and generally acted like a piece of low-class scum.

Long ago I made the decision to avoid all Mel Gibson films because I knew the man to be a bigot. He was raised by a neo-Nazi with blatant bigoted views and he adopted his father's viewpoints.

There is little to say about Gibson that is pleasant. He is a drunk, he has a violent history, and he is a bigot in more ways than one.

Mel Gibson's racist rant, caught on tape, is rather disgusting. I've heard the tape and shut it off before getting to the end—it was obvious he is a very hateful man.

Gibson illustrates well a maxim I have held about bigots: a bigot against one group of people is usually a bigot against many.

People who rant about "niggers" often hate others as well. Gibson's bigotries have been documented to include Jews and gays as well. A paradox of bigotry is that bigots tend to be indiscriminate about whom they hate. Look at the Republican Party, that organized party of hate, which rails against immigrants and gays. Look at the Klan that hates Jews, blacks, gays, and Mexicans. A man who harbors hateful views about one group of people tends to entertain similar views about many groups of people. Bigotry breeds more bigotry.

Rand Paul and Ayn Rand: not peas from the same pod

One of the tragedies from the Ron Paul movement has been the association of libertarianism with very unlibertarian sentiments. Before Rand Paul picked up his father's sullied mantle I was talking with someone who had been a top official in the Liberal Democratic Party at a dinner in London. Some of the people were libertarians who thought the Paulites were a good thing. I pointed out how our ideas were being associated with ideas that were most clearly not libertarian. The Lib Dem guy made the point about "brand contamination." When someone becomes associated with other things, a tad bit more nefarious and questionable, the good aspects of the brand become contaminated.

That is what Ron Paul did to libertarianism—associating it with anti-immigrant sentiments, neo-Confederate politics, Birch Society conspiracy nonsense, state's rights, and racism, to name a few. Ron Paul has always been a conservative, not a libertarian—as his vote to keep sodomy a crime in D.C., showed. And Rand Paul is more of the same, but worse.

So who gets blamed for Rand Paul's views? Libertarians do. Sam Tanenhaus referred to Rand Paul's controversial statements with a New York Times piece entitled: "Rand Paul and the Perils of Textbook Libertarianism." That would imply that Rand Paul is a textbook libertarian when he is no such thing. He has less right to claim libertarianism than does his father.

So I wanted to clear up a few points. Not only isn't Rand Paul a libertarian, as I have asserted before, but he isn't even named after Ayn Rand—as some of his worshippers and detractors all seem to assume. Paul has clarified it himself but that doesn't stop the morons, on both Left and Right, from saying otherwise. His full name is Randal Paul and Rand is merely an abbreviation of his first name, not homage to Ayn Rand.

And, if it had been homage to Rand, I can assure you she wouldn't have been honored. Rand refused to support candidates if they campaigned against abortion. She refused to support Reagan and stated his opposition to abortion as a reason, and Reagan was much more moderate on the issue than Paul, who wouldn't even allow a woman to abort in order to save her own life. My friend Barbara Branden reports: "When I last saw Rand in 1981, she told me that she was opposed to Reagan because she considered him a typical conservative in his attempt to link politics and religion. About his anti-abortion view, she said: 'A man who does not believe in a woman's right to her own body, does not believe in human rights.'"

Paul, according to his own site, had the endorsement of the far-Right theocratic group, Concerned Women for America, and his site says that his "socially conservative views have earned the respect and trust of church leaders across Kentucky." Consider how Rand saw Reagan and his friendly relations with the Moral Majority:

The appalling disgrace of his administration is his connection with the so-called "Moral Majority" and sundry other TV religionists, who are struggling—apparently with his approval—to take us back to the Middle Ages, via the unconstitutional union of religion and politics.

Rand said Reagan was trying to "arouse the country by some sort of inspirational appeal. He is right in thinking that the country needs an inspirational element. But he will not find it in the God-Family-Tradition swamp." So while Randal Paul was sucking up to the social conservative religionists, Ayn Rand had called their ideology a "swamp" and wanted nothing to do with them.

Previously I mentioned Rand's views on the issue of state's rights, which is vastly different than Randal Paul's views. While social conservatives like the two Pauls, Wayne Allen Root, Bob Barr and others, argue for state's rights, Ayn Rand said that people don't understand what it means She argued it was merely a "division of power between local and national authorities" and did "not grant to a state government an unlimited arbitrary power over its citizens or the privilege of abrogating the citizens' individual rights." As Rand saw it state's rights would justify the violation of separation of church and state at the state level, as Ron Paul and other conservatives have said.

George Wallace used the state's right mantra to justify his racist campaigns for political office. Rand noted that Wallace was NOT "a defender of individual rights, but merely of state's rights—which is far from being the same thing." She said Wallace's denunciation of big government was one that merely wanted to replace federal tyranny with local tyranny, that all Wallace wanted was "to place the same unlimited, arbitrary power in the hands of many little governments." This is also true of the paleo-conservatives pretending to be libertarians: Randal and Ron Paul being the prime examples.

Libertarian blogger Timothy Lee noticed that Randal Paul's "libertarianism" "is curiously one-sided." Lee notes that Paul's view "is far from uncompromising" and points to Paul's rabid anti-immigration stands, his demand that anyone who is a citizen of a "rogue nation" be denied travel visas and that he supports "holding suspects indefinitely without trial at GITMO," as evidence. He also lists Paul's opposition to marriage equality, his refusal to talk about the war on drugs, or free trade as areas of concern. Lee writes:

Paul is an uncompromising defender of the rights of business owners to decide who will sit at their lunch counters. But Paul apparently sees no problem with deploying the power of the state to stop private business owners from hiring undocumented workers. Nor does he seem to care very much about business owners’ freedom to do business with the millions of non-terrorists who live in “rogue nations.” Or, for that matter, the freedom of a gay business owner to marry the person he loves. There’s a principle at work here, all right, but I don’t think it has very much to do with limited government.

Randal Paul got caught by his own position in defense of private discrimination. And while I agree with freedom of association as a right, it is very difficult, if not impossible to defend those rights if you yourself advocate violating those rights in numerous ways. Social conservatives, like Paul, are not advocates of individual rights, but proponents of social order and state control in the name of God, family, tradition, morality and religion. They are sometimes opponents of state intervention and sometimes advocates of it. Their lack of consistency means it is easy to show them up as hypocrites, advocating one set of laws for one group of people and another set for other, less favored, groups.

As a libertarian I would say this lack of consistency plagues both Progressives and Conservatives. Which is why libertarians are neither, but hold the radical middle ground where rights are applied consistently. Randal Paul, like his father doesn't support equality of rights for gay people. So that meant he could not answer Rachel Maddow well when she nailed him on discrimination. He stuttered, stumbled, tried to evade, and basically made his position look bad. He tried to claim libertarian principles, but not being a consistent libertarian made that difficult. So how would I have responded to Maddow, in the same circumstances? Here is my answer:

Rachel, that's a good question and is the answer is more complex that a lot of people want to believe. For instance, why shouldn't a "black student's union" have the right to admit only black students? And doesn't it make sense that with the sort of sexual harassment that many women have experienced that a lesbian bar might rationally want to exclude straight men as patrons or employees?

Much of the struggle for human rights, especially for those oppressed and discriminated against, has revolved around the freedom to associate. With the right to freely associate comes the right to not associate, which is what that lesbian bar would be doing. Government is a very blunt tool, and when the law applies to private associations it does so without taking into account, nor can it take into account, the nuances which may well justify the reluctance for some people to associate with others.

Where there is private discrimination, that is irrational and prejudicial, such as the refusal of some restaurants to serve black patrons, I think it important that community leaders, people like yourself, all decent people, stand up and protest, boycott, picket, leaflet and force a change in policy. And there are many examples of that happening.

Government is such a blunt tool to use that it can't distinguish between the first kind of discrimination and the second kind. It destroys both with the same law. Thus we could get bizarre things like a gay resort, with somewhat liberal standards on nudity or public displays of sexuality, being sued for discriminating against heterosexual families with children. Government does a bad job of telling the differences and thus tends to ban both.

Most people, like yourself, clearly can see the differences. A Christian church that refused to perform Jewish weddings doesn't bother most people. A restaurant that refuses to serve black customers does. The church is only exempt because of the First Amendment, and thus safe from such laws. But the lesbian bar I mentioned is not. The community is free to distinguish between these different forms of discrimination and routinely does so. They will boycott and protest against the restaurant but no one bats an eye at religious discrimination by churches.

What is critical to remember is that state power has more often been used to force discrimination than to forbid it. The South was not a free society and had legislation mandating bigotry and prejudicial policies. When local government violates the rights of people, it is fit and proper for federal legislation to prevent that. Government is a dangerous weapon and is more likely to be used to suppress rights.

The great civil rights battle of today, Rachel, is that of marriage equality.
Look at the battle line. All across the country private businesses treat their gay employees and customers with respect, sure some don't, but they are not the dominant trend by any means, but the exception. As a gay woman you surely know this.

Gay relationships are recognized by employers who grant their gay employees the same rights as other employees. Where is the problem? Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- government mandated discrimination. The Defense of Marriage Act -- government mandated discrimination. Immigration laws exist that refuse to recognize gay couples. That is state bigotry, not private. We have state mandated discrimination in the tax codes, marriage laws, custody laws, even in hospital visitation rights.

So, Rachel, here is my offer, based on my principles. Let us abolish all government mandated discrimination, abolish those laws, reform the system to see full equality of rights for all. Compared to the nationwide massive violations of rights that government is doing today, the issue of private discrimination is tiny. Not only is the impact of state discrimination far more destructive but it is much harder to change. Many a business has suddenly switched sides due to a boycott, but you can't boycott government. In addition, much of the private prejudices collapse when government-sanctioned bigotry is abolished.

So, when it comes to my preferences, I prefer the private versus governmental approach. It is easier to wipe out bigotry when privately practiced then when enforced by law. Even with a so-called "friend" in the White House look at the meager progress gay and lesbian people have made with their just demands. It is far easier to end private discrimination than state-enforced bigotry.

A government that routinely discriminates against tens of millions of Americans, due to their sexual orientation, or gender identity, is not a trust-worthy advocate for individual rights. I would rather leave this to the common sense of the people, using proven strategies like boycotts and picket lines, to eradicate irrational prejudice while leaving the woman's bar alone, as I suspect the case would be.

My answer may not entirely satisfy Maddow, but it would go a long way toward addressing her concerns and showing the good intentions of libertarians toward minorities. So why didn't Randall Paul say this? Why didn't he defend well the libertarian position? Because he couldn't, he doesn't believe in it.

The arbitrary nature of prejudice.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Some people are upset about this short film. But I like it, in a very disturbing way. Like many films you have to look for meaning and perhaps we always interpret that meaning through our own personal filters. What I can tell you that I saw is how arbitrary is human prejudice.

At first the viewer is trying to make some sense of what is happening. But soon it becomes clear that what we we are witnessing doesn't make sense to us. After all—who would do a thing like that?

But what I thought of was precisely how all prejudice, which is the foundation for the sorts of scenes we see in this video, is arbitrary. People have to convince themselves that the other is "different" in some significant and dangerous way. Few such people really exist, so we make up stories about the "different" people in order to demonize them.

When I think of the people who are routinely targeted by bigots the reasons for their targeting seems as inconsequential as what we see in this film.

UPDATE: You Tube has banned this video from their site. How stupid of them.

One of the most hateful mothers I have read about.

I wish I could tell you precisely how angry I am right at this moment. The rage is boiling up like you wouldn’t believe. It is almost 5 am and I should be going to bed. I can’t. The very, very ugly head of hate and bigotry has reared itself again and harmed innocent people and destroyed the beauty of loving commitment. I want to tell you about two of the cruellest, most vicious, bastards I have ever heard of. And I sincerely hope that both of them are struck down dead soon. These people are monsters for what they did. These vile people are Thomas and Jeanne Atkins of Carmel, Indiana.

Now, let me tell you about their son, Patrick. Patrick was raised by these two “parents” who were ultra-religious and still are. Patrick went off to Wabash College in 1978 and there he fell in love. His parents hated the idea. The person he loved was Brett Conrad.

For a quarter of a century Brett and Patrick lived, loved and struggled together, to establish their lives. After 12 years they were able to buy a home together. They shared their bank accounts and their entire life. The bastards of parents hated every moment of it. But the lengths they would go to astounds me and I don’t expect much humanity from fanatics.

Patrick was on a business trip in Atlanta when he collapsed from a ruptured aneurysm and then, while still in hospital, he had a stroke. Brett rushed to Atlanta to be with his partner. The vile parents had flown down as well and asserted legal control over their incapacitated son. They hate homosexuals and homosexuality. And they don’t want Patrick to ever be allowed to see Brett again. You can see why I think these people are walking pieces of shit.

According to court documents Patrick’s brother said “that Brett’s mere presence in the hospital was ‘hurting’ Jeanne and offending her religious beliefs." The court also said that " Jeanne told Brett that if Patrick was going to return to his life with Brett, after recovering from the stroke, she would prefer that he not recover at all.” Any woman that would wish this upon her own son is not fit to be called a mother, unless one were to insert a very rude word immediately thereafter.

Jeanne is a fanatical Catholic. The picture above is of her leading employees, at the company her son used to run, in daily prayer sessions. On top of that she attends Catholic Mass every day. We are talking hard-core fanatic. It takes a lot of faith to inflict this much pain on others.

At first the family would allow Brett 15 minutes with Patrick but only after they had left so that they wouldn’t have to be religiously offended by the FACT that Patrick is gay. But then the cruelty of righteousness got the upper hand and they banned the visits altogether. Only “family” and clergy were allowed in by the family’s orders. The court reports, with seeming approval, that “hospital staff defied the family’s instructions and allowed Brett to continue to visit with Patrick in the morning and in the evenings, outside of regular visiting hours.” Good on them.

Patrick is pretty much incapacitated. He can do basic things with help but can’t understand most of what he reads and can only engage in simple, short conversations. Brett has been fighting to bring Patrick back to the relationship and home they built together. The “parents” refuse to consider it. It’s a sin, is all they can snarl. I don’t quote this guy often, but didn’t someone these people allegedly worship supposedly say: “As you have done it unto one of the least of these, you have done it unto me”?

Brett went to court but Indiana doesn’t recognize gay relationships in any form. Thanks to the Republicans they have a constitutional amendment specifically forbidding legal recognition of gay couples. The court was sympathetic but their hands were tied. The court said: “We are confronted here with the heartbreaking fracture of a family. Brett and Patrick have spent 25 years together as life partners -- longer than Patrick lived at home with his parents -- and their future life together has been destroyed by Patrick’s tragic medical condition and by the Atkinses’ unwillingness to accept their son's lifestyle.” The court said that given the parent's rabidly antigay views that it was skeptical they could properly care from Patrick’s emotional needs but their hands were tied by the law.

The best the court could do was grant Brett visitation rights . What god-damned awful people are these parents from hell. But these bastards weren’t finished. They are going back to court to deny even this much. The argument is that Brett has no legal standing and that they, as the so-called parents, are guardians and that means they can determine anything they want about who is allowed to visit their son. What perfect little Hitlers they have become.

First, the parents stuck their son in a nursing home. Brett would come by after hours to spend time with his partner so the parents wouldn’t see him. Staff at the nursing facility said that Brett’s “visits had a positive impact on Patrick’s recovery.” An observer from the court testified it is “evident that Patrick loves Brett very much and it is evident that Brett loves Patrick.

A neuropsychologist told the court that a long term relationship is beneficial to recovery. Normally he would try “to reintegrate the patient into that environment so that they can participate in activities and situations with which they’re familiar.” He said spending time with Brett would be beneficial. The family argued in court that any visitation “poses a risk of diminishing Patrick’s chance for normalcy of life.” I suspect they are referring to his homosexuality and not his illness. These parents apparently would prefer their son to be incapacitated than for him to be gay. Lovely people!

When Brett filed for guardianship, which the courts denied because of the law, the parents suddenly had Patrick transferred to their home even though they were told this would negatively impact Patrick’s recover. They have prevented Brett from coming on the property and won’t even let him speak to Patrick by telephone. They also grabbed what assets they could. And they admitted that regardless of what the court ordered they would never allow Patrick to see his partner again. All of this pain just because they believe that a deity has told them to act this way.

Under guardianship laws in Indiana there is no provision to recognize gay partners, no matter how loving or how long they have been together. Parents, no matter how cruel, have superior rights. The court document is heartbreaking. It lays out the facts that these parents can’t stomach.

It acknowledges the men have, for 25 years, “lived together and have been in a committed and loving relationship” but that the parents “vehemently disapprove”. The court quoted a letter Patrick had sent his parents begging them to accept Brett. “I want you all to know that Brett is my best friend in the wold world and I love him more than life itself. I beg all of you to reach to him with the same love you have for me, he is extremely special and once you know him you will understand why I love him so much.” The parents refused that request.

The court says that Jeanne is so hateful of homosexuals that Brett’s family, which is accepting of the couple, were called “evil” and “sinners” because they refused to condemn them. Jeanne “testified that no amount of evidence could convince her that Patrick and Brett were happy together or that they had a positive and beneficial relationship.” By the way this horrid woman can be contacted through this email address: latkins@atkins-intl-foods.com. I have a home address and phone number but since poor Patrick is kept there by these parents I won’t give it out. Please note that this email goes to Lisa Atkins, who I believe is a daughter, not directly to the mother who doesn't give her email on the company website. But at atkins-intl-foods.com you can find a company phone number.

Also note that these people sell their deserts, a company that Patrick helped start with his investment and with his efforts, all over the U.S. and Canada. You might wish to avoid purchasing any of these products and encourage others to do so as well. You can also find the contact details of sales reps who cover the area you live in. You might wish to contact them and tell them you are boycotting their product and why. And you might wish to encourage others in your area to do the same. If you do contact these horrible people try to remain polite. Simply express your feelings as non-obscenely as possible, don't issue threats or harass.

The parents are also trying to take the home that Brett and Patrick lived in together and apparently are having some success. The court says that the home must be split equally between Brett and the horrid God-botherers. The parents can sell the property if they wish. The parents took two-thirds of the bank account that Patrick and Brett shared. They are taking half of all household goods

Conservatives say that legally recognizing gay couples will destroy marriage. The only destruction I see here is being done by fanatical parents with the help of the law.

Boycott Atkins International Foods, the cheesecake made with hate.

BOYCOTT UPDATE: One fellow blogger has said that he has found that Bloomingdales in New York City carries the Atkins line of food, helping fund Jeanne Atkins in her campaign, although they don't know it. He suggest people contact Bloomingdales and protest this. You can file an on-line complaint about them stocking Atkins here. If you wish to call them do so at 1-888-593-2540. Or do both. I hope the gay media also picks up on this topic. And I urge other bloggers to push this issue. This is too horrible to let slide.

10 simple steps to reverse the "gay lifestyle"

When you get a newspaper headline like this one you have to laugh. It is from The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Mississippi. The headline:

Reversing gay lifestyle focus of new Baptist job.

It is about a minister the Southern Baptists have designated as their point man in their “ministry” to (or against, depending on your point of view) gay people.

What does it mean to reverse the “gay lifestyle”?

So here are some suggestions as to what these Southern Baptists might do to “reverse” the “gay lifestyle”.

1. No more hair stylists. Back to flat tops and bad barbers the way God intended.

2. No cats, only dogs as pets. Poodles or any dog small enough to sit in one’s lap are not acceptable and should be treated like cats.

3. All walls in the apartment or home must be painted basic white.Under no circumstances are pastels or vibrant colors to be used. Wallpaper is acceptable provided it clashes with the upholstery on the furniture.

4. The only label on one’s underwear that is acceptable is a label with your own name not the name of a designer.

5. Ties, preferably clip-ons, are required on Sundays. Ties never match the socks since the socks are always white, just like the shoes.

6. Unless a “little woman” is cooking food options are as follows: TV dinners (any kind), International House of Pancakes, any restaurant with a drive-through window, and Denny’s. Exception: subject is allowed to cook for himself provided he does so over an open fire, in the backyard with large slabs of meat. Please note: sauces that are not red in color are not permitted at any time.

7. Subject must vacate any of the following locations: New England down to and including New York, the region from Silicon Valley north to the Canadian border, Miami or Key West, Los Angeles, Madison, Wisconsin, the north side of Chicago beginning at the Loop, the French Quarter of New Orleans and any small town described as an “artists colony”. Europe is strictly off limits. Preferred living locations: anywhere in Texas, except Austin and any state that voted for George Wallace in 1968.

8. As a general rule of thumb clothes purchased from any store ending in “mart” are acceptable such as K-Mart and Wal-Mart.

9. The following entertainment must be avoided: all films with subtitles; any film produced in the last 30 years that is in black and white; live theater and cabaret shows.

10 Fishing is allowed as is any sport where animals die. Baseball is permitted but not softball. Football (except touch football) is allowed. Any sport popular in England or Europe is forbidden. Golf is allowed (except miniature), tennis is not. Badminton and croquet are strictly forbidden. Checkers is permitted, chess is not. Diving and swimming are forbidden but boxing is encouraged.

I supposed by now the whole venture looks a little silly doesn’t it? I find that the term “gay lifestyle”, along with the equally absurd “gay agenda”, are terms that have no meaning whatsoever, not even to the people who use them -- who themselves are rarely gay. If one spoke of “the heterosexual lifestyle” we don’t know if one is speaking of Pat Robertson, Hugh Hefner, Bill Clinton or the Pope. In reality there is no heterosexual lifestyle nor is there a gay lifestyle.

But the idea that such a lifestyle exists is a necessary component of the creation of a scapegoat. The idea that there is some “gay agenda” allows the bumpkins to find an easy target on whom to pin their problems. The successful rallying of a political lynch mob requires that the participants in the mob see their victim as “the other”, someone who is clearly not them. The more alien the better. The term “gay lifestyle” is supposed to constantly remind people that “those people” just “aren’t like us”. And when people aren’t like us then many people conclude they are legitimate targets, sometimes literally.

The reality is that the Religious Right has been engaged in this sort of enterprise since the earliest days of the Republic.

In 1800 they warned Americans of the dire consequences of electing someone as immoral as Thomas Jefferson, a man they said was a leader of the secret Illuminati plot to destroy America. A few decades later they were screaming about the Masonic threat. Then it came time to attack Catholics, immigrants, liquor, “bobbed hair”, pants suits on women, Hollywood movies, Jews, immigrants again, liberals, the Civil Rights movements, etc.

The wonderful writer H.L. Mencken wrote that the common man is difficult to educate “but it is always easy to scare him.” And that task...

....is the daily business of the evangelical pastors of the Republic. They are specialists in alarms and bugaboos. The rum demon, atheists, Bolsheviks, the Pope, bootleggers, Leopold and Loeb—all of these have served them in turn and in the demonology of the Ku Klux Klan all have been conveniently brought together. The old stock company of devils has been retired, and with it the old repertoire of sins. The American peasant of today finds it vastly easier to claw into Heaven that he used to. Private holiness has now been handed over to the Holy Rollers and other such survivors from a harsher day. It is sufficient now to hate the Pope, to hate the Jews, to hate the scientists, to hate all foreigners, to hate whatever the cities yield to. These hatreds have been spread in the land by rev. pastors, chiefly Baptists and Methodists. They constitute with their attendant fears, the basic religion of the American clodhopper today. They are the essence of the new Christianity, American style.

Mencken wrote that 82 years ago. Things haven’t changed very much in the meantime. It is true that, on a whole, the Methodists have since joined Western Civilization. In the process they lost a lot of their members who were still baying for a good old fashioned lynching. The would-be social exorcists switch demons now and then just to keep the crowd, with their notorious short attention span, interested. But the sniffers and snoopers frequently return to the same old demons for the sake of tradition.

Today it would be difficult, if not comically, for them to try to get people riled up about dancing, miscegination, or “mixed bathing” (swimming pools). And the hullabaloo about “bobbed hair” is, in retrospective, rather funny. Perhaps all their devil sniffing and witch hunting would be equally funny if, in the process, they didn’t hurt real people.

Pride & Prejudice: Inside the mind of the bigot.

I find bigots to be a sad bunch. They tend to be people who are quite literally suffering from an acute awareness of their own lack of ability, intellect, moral character or some combination of all three.

They retreat into “racial” politics because it is only by claiming membership in some wider collective that they get any sense of accomplishment in life.

On three occasions that I can remember I’ve run into herds of these racialist collectivists. Once I was out for a Sunday drive and ran into some sort of gathering on a local farmer’s land. There were lots of police and people milling about. I got out and asked what was going on and was told the Klan was holding a rally of some sort.

I walked over, and since I was sufficiently white, they allowed me to enter the property. I wandered about mainly eaves dropping. I listened to the Bubba’s and Bubba-esses whining about the vicissitudes of life. I listened to individuals who couldn’t speak proper English explain that they are utter failures in life is because the “niggers” and the “Kikes” were out to get them. Why anyone would spend any time to “get” these illiterate dredges of society is beyond me.

There is no need to tear down people who spent most of there lives at the bottom. And they are not at the bottom because they were picked upon by conspiracies of anyone. They were there because they lacked ability, lacked intelligence and lacked the moral qualities that allow even the less intelligent and less able to produce decent lives for themselves. They struck me at people who worked hard to make their way down the economic ladder of life.

Few people are so unintelligent as to not know the limitations of their intelligence. I will never be a nuclear physicist. I know that. No big deal. And I also know the limitations of my abilities. I won’t be running a marathon anytime soon. There are many things I don’t understand and many things I am incapable of doing.

But the basics of life don’t require massive intelligence or overwhelming ability. Plenty of people, who are average in most every way, live successful lives. One need not be endowed with a high IQ or great skills to do well in most civilized societies. One merely needs some basic moral character.

Of course this is not to say that sometimes people aren't victims of unfortunate circumstances. But often I’ve seen many victims who were themselves the architects of those unfortunate circumstances. The reality is that these people are often attracted to bigoted viewpoints, especially racism.

The racist view is of great psychological comfort to these people. It allows them to do things. First, they can ascribe their own sad state of affairs to the actions of a vicious conspiracy run by the people they hate.

If they are unemployed it is the fault of those “damn illegals” or the “niggers and their affirmative action” or the “Jew plot to strip whites of their rights”. It is no secret that racist groups particularly attract white failures. Scapegoating others for their own problems allows them to ignore their own moral shortcomings.

In fact this is what the concept scapegoat originally meant. It comes from the Old Testament ritual of taking a goat and symbolically placing upon it all the sins of the people and then driving it out into the wilderness or over a cliff to its death. When people become unsettled or unhappy they often look for someone on whom they can place their own sins. The typical racist takes his sins, his moral shortcomings, and places them upon the scapegoat, or the group which he despises. He then seeks to drive them out or kill them.

Like most collectivists the racist needs to deny his own personal responsibility. He evades individual responsibility and instead claims victim status for himself.

As an aside it should be noted that this claiming of victim status is often used by people evading responsibility. However, not everyone who claims victimhood is a bigot. In fact, most are not. In a strange psychological convergence people who are targeted by bigots, and the bigots themselves, both claim victim status. This sometimes degenerates into duelling victim groups, where one tries to trump the other as to who is the most oppressed. This shouldn’t be construed to mean that some people are not legitimate victims. But many were never actually victimized but use their status as a member of a group which is targeted by bigots as the excuse for their shortcomings.

The bigot is, in so many ways, a person who has failed in life. His hatred of a group or several groups is his attempt to explain away his failure. He sees the others as a collective. All Jews, all blacks, all immigrants, all gays, etc. are responsible for the problems the bigot experiences or which he feels his own society is experiencing. He has trouble seeing the individual and if he does see an individual he tries to make them the exception to the rule. So the Mexican family he knows is okay but the others are not. The gay friend he has is alright the others are not.

Hitler once lamented that every Nazi he knew thought that one particular Jew was the exception to the rule. They each accepted the Nazi hatred of Jews as a group but each wanted to make the exception for the Edeljude “the noble Jew”. Even Hitler himself acted the same. The Jewish doctor Eduard Bloch, who cared for Hitler’s mother Klara, was left unmolested by the Nazis right up until he emigrated to the United States in 1940. He and his family were spared many of the abuses inflicted on Jews.

As much as the bigot tries he does seem perpetually forced to find that there are “exceptions” to his stereotype. And then he will use this exception as proof that his bigotry is not bigotry at all. He seems to think that no bigot would make such exceptions. Hitler’s doctor proves otherwise.

The second way the bigot uses his prejudicial collectivism to assuage his own justifiable lack of self-esteem is to claim credit for the accomplishments of others. You see this when they speak of “white pride” for instance

The Village Voice recently ran an article by a journalist who spent some time with a group of these racists. She described in great detail how they engaged in the usual hate speech. They used all sorts of crude racist remarks and found the most juvenile insults witty and funny. But they also had organized a day to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jamie Kelso, the leader of this ragtag herd of bigots was quite excited about the museum visit. He told his followers: “It’s bigger than the Louvre... and everything in it is made by white people like us.” At another point he said: “We’re going to look at the sculptures, some of the most amazing work done by our race.”

The great work of these artists was the result of individual effort not the work of a race or a collective. There is no collective brain. To say that this work was the work of “white people like us” is absurd. But to cover up the lack of personal ability the racist takes credit for the work of others.

Their own lack of moral character, more than anything else, is the reason they suffer from this sense of inferiority. It is an accurate appraisal of their own life. But instead of acknowledging their own shortcomings they denigrate groups of people and scapegoat them for their problems. And they take credit for work which was not their own. Both are psychological defense mechanism employed to avoid the haunting fear that their failures in life might just be their own fault.