Posts tagged: lgbt
The highest court in the land has decided to hear challenges to Prop 8 and DoMA.
I’m hoping the DoMA case is heard first, because then the Prop 8 one would likely not have to be heard at all. Oppose it on the basis of Full Faith & Credit and the Fourteenth, combined with Loving’s establishment of marriage as a fundamental civil right, it’s an open and shut case. Scalia, Thomas, and Alito play willfully obtuse and dissent, but it still goes down 6-3. This makes gay marriage legal nationwide. The lawyer would have to be a fool to lose this one.
There’s actually no real way this doesn’t go well.
So who exactly is surprised that it turns out that To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) are disgusting sexist, homophobic douches who only really exist to scam emo kids into going to church?
I’ve been suspect of these assholes for ages, so I did some research, and it only took me seconds to find out I was right to be distrustful. Renee at omgwtflol.net also did some research. From the article:
They made x amount, let’s call it $100,000 to make it even. Of that, only something like 25% was accounted for. The rest? Completely unaccounted for. Most charities release their financial statements. Don’t you find it a little odd that we don’t know where 75% of all money given to them goes? The 75% would be “administrative costs”, aka “paying the people that work there”. Of that 25%, some of it goes to an extremely sketchy charity called Mercy Ministries. You might know them as the anti-gay, pro-life, pile of crap charity that believes that people can be made straight. At their homes, they don’t allow close contact between women because of the risk of lesbianism! Isn’t that nice, donating to a charity which encourages a belief that makes a lot of teens suicidal? MM also believes in the power of exorcism. Australians may remember them as the charity that made girls entering the program sign their Centrelink payments over to them, and gave the girls no therapy but prayer. Do you really want to support this charity? TWLOHA is effectively endorsing the belief that prayer cures depression, and that being gay is something one chooses. They’re owned by Fireproof Ministries. Y’know, the same guys who gave you XXXChurch.com? You know, selling out Jesus for the moneys? They’re also (financially) associated with Teen Mania Ministries, which has been described as racist, women hating and hateful in general. The dude who runs it, Ron Luce also runs the Battle Cry Campaign. The BCC’s purpose is to “…ensure that Christianity survives in America by redefining society”. Read their Wiki. Tell me that isn’t a stumble away from a cult. Yeah, once again, do you want your money to support this? Sure, they offer hope. But, you know, that extra 75% would be way better spent on actually helping people, as opposed to selling fugly tshirts and supporting homophobia. I find it sick they’ve turned depression and addiction into a damn fashion statement. I find it sick they’re using their power to help support vile and disgusting beliefs like homophobia.
Personally, I think I’ve always been uncomfortable with it because it’s always seemed to me that there’s so much glamourisation of self-injury around it and linked to it.
I’d be interested to know if anyone else has any intertesting stories or facts they know about the organisation? I feel like something should be done, but I don’t know what :s
Edit: Ever since posting this I’ve been thinking about all the people I saw suggesting TWLOHA as an anti-suicide organisation on Spirit Day and I feel kind of sick about it. Please reblog this so that any gay and trans* (because anti-choice and anti-gay people don’t tend to be too ‘down’ with trans* people) know not to contact them for help or contribute money. There are charities out there that offer support to anyone, whether they’re gay, or trans*, or young and pregnant, or have an STI, and they are the ones that deserve our support.
2nd Edit: Here is Jamie Tworkowski, founder of TWLOHA’s rubbish response where he calls being gay a lifestyle choice. I also corresponded with a woman called Missy who asked for suggestions for the website, none of which were taken up as far as I can tell, and I never received a response.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-becker/lgbts-for-ron-paul-huh_b_1197057.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HP%2FPolitics+(Politics+on+The+Huffington+Post)
I must confess that I’m truly baffled by the level of support I’m seeing among my friends for presidential candidate Ron Paul. While the number of Paul fans in my circles is relatively small, he nonetheless enjoys the highest level of support from my LGBT-identified and equality-supporting friends out of all the non-LGBT-friendly candidates. In addition, the Ron Paul supporters I know tend to be passionately, often blindly, devoted to their candidate, steamrolling over any criticisms of Paul, no matter how legitimate, and simply dismissing out of hand those they cannot out-argue.
To many people, Ron Paul’s sound bites are very appealing. Smaller government. Individual liberty. Legalization of marijuana and other drugs. (Yes, I think this has a lot to do with the support Paul receives, especially among young people and college students.) Unfortunately, it’s been my experience that most supporters of Ron Paul stop there and either don’t dig any further or ignore the digging done by others. This alarms me, because Ron Paul’s record is very, very anti-gay.
On his best days, Ron Paul supports the so-called “states’ rights” position regarding marriage equality. On his worst, he has specifically bragged about his efforts to obstruct and attack LGBT people’s civil rights and gone out of his way to slander and mischaracterize LGBT people.
Setting aside the generally disturbing deployment of the “states’ rights” argument at all, given its shameful history as a justifier of slavery and Jim Crow laws in this country, I’d like to ask Mr. Paul (as well as those who profess to support both Ron Paul and LGBT equality) why LGBT couples should be the only Americans whose marriages are subject to the “states’ rights” standard. Why should only LGBT people, but not straight people, have to seek the approval of our state legislatures and/or citizenry in order to marry the people we love? Why should our marriages be the only ones that dissolve when we cross state lines? And why is this an acceptable state of affairs, especially given the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law to all American citizens?
“Yeah,” many of my Paul-supporting friends will say, “but that’s just your opinion.”
This brings up another point: the difference between opinion and fact. Maybe it’s just me, but in this era of false equivalency memes, it appears as though this distinction is being increasingly overlooked. A fact is something that is empirically true and can be supported by evidence, while an opinion is a belief that may or may not be backed up with some type of evidence, usually taking the form of a subjective statement that can be emotionally based or result from a person’s individual interpretation of a fact.
- FACT: Ron Paul’s presidential campaign issued a flyer that boasted about the candidate’s efforts to introduce legislation that would remove challenges to the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act from the federal court system.
- FACT: Ron Paul’s Iowa state director is Mike Heath, a long-term Christian-right activist who formerly served as the board chairman of an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group known as “Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.”
- FACT: Ron Paul has a long history of racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic comments.
- FACT: As state above, Ron Paul supports the so-called “states’ rights” approach to marriage, but interestingly, only for LGBT couples.
- FACT: Ron Paul said, “If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’ constitutional authority to define what official state documents other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a same-sex marriage license issued in another state.”
- FACT: Ron Paul opposes the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by civilian, nonreligious employers.
Based on the above examples and so many others, there is no way one can honestly characterize Ron Paul’s past statements and record as anything other than anti-gay. Of course, LGBTs and supporters of LGBT equality, like all voters, can and should vote for whomever they choose. I am neither disputing that right nor attempting in any way to tell anyone how to vote. What I am saying, however, is that LGBT and pro-LGBT voters should at least acknowledge that a vote for a candidate like Ron Paul is a vote for someone who opposes their rights.
actually, it’s not ok for either of them. shut the fuck up.
Shut up, white teenagers. You are wrong.
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