Illinois: Antibullying Bill Rejected From Fears of Being Too Pro-Gay

May 24, 2012 — Suzan

From The Advocate:  http://www.advocate.com/society/education/2012/05/23/illinois-antibullying-bill-rejected-fears-being-too-progay

BY Michelle Garcia
May 23 2012

Illinois legislators rejected an antibullying bill after conservatives expressed fears that the proposed law was too “pro-homosexual.”

The initiative, which would have held school administrators more accountable for handling bullying incidents and preventing harassment, fell one vote short of passing in the state Senate on Tuesday, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

“There are some programs that are just against bullying in general,” Sen. Kyle McCarter said in the article. “Some of them tend to have an agenda of being pro-homosexual.”

Complete article at:  http://www.advocate.com/society/education/2012/05/23/illinois-antibullying-bill-rejected-fears-being-too-progay

Posted in Christo-Fascism, Civil Rights, Constitutional Rights, Hate Crimes, Hate Speech, Homophobia, Misogyny, Murders, Religion, Right Wing Bigotry, Right Wing Bug F*** Insanity, Right Wing Extermist, Transphobia, Uncategorized. Comments Off on Illinois: Antibullying Bill Rejected From Fears of Being Too Pro-Gay

Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Say They Have Been Sexually Assaulted

December 16, 2011 — Suzan

From The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/health/nearly-1-in-5-women-in-us-survey-report-sexual-assault.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=rape&st=cse#

By
Published: December 14, 2011

An exhaustive government survey of rape and domestic violence released on Wednesday affirmed that sexual violence against women remains endemic in the United States and in some instances may be far more common than previously thought.

Nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or had experienced an attempted rape at some point, and one in four reported having been beaten by an intimate partner. One in six women have been stalked, according to the report.

“That almost one in five women have been raped in their lifetime is very striking and, I think, will be surprising to a lot of people,” said Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey.

“I don’t think we’ve really known that it was this prevalent in the population,” she said.

The study, called the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, was begun in 2010 with the support of the National Institute of Justice and the Department of Defense. The study, a continuing telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 16,507 adults, defines intimate partner and sexual violence broadly.

The surveyors elicited information on types of aggression not previously studied in national surveys, including sexual violence other than rape, psychological aggression, coercion and control of reproductive and sexual health.

They also gathered information about the physical and mental health of violence survivors.

Sexual violence affects women disproportionately, the researchers found. One-third of women said they had been victims of a rape, beating or stalking, or a combination of assaults.

Continue reading at:   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/15/health/nearly-1-in-5-women-in-us-survey-report-sexual-assault.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=rape&st=cse#

Posted in Hate Crimes, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Violence. Tags: , , , . Comments Off on Nearly 1 in 5 Women in U.S. Survey Say They Have Been Sexually Assaulted

Why is Facebook Protecting Pro Rape Language and Abuse of Women?

December 14, 2011 — Suzan

From Alternet:  http://www.alternet.org/sex/153406/why_is_facebook_protecting_pro_rape_language_and_abuse_of_women__/

Despite a campaign that included 180,000 signatures, Facebook continues to post pro-rape pages, showing, yet again, that they care about users so long as they’re profitable.

By Melissa Gira Grant
December 12, 2011

 Since August, tens of thousands of Internet activists have taken to social media to protest a social media giant — Facebook — for its apparent tolerance of user-created pages that make sexual violence into a punchline. The pages, with titles like “Riding your Girlfriend softly, Cause you dont [sic] want to wake her up” and “Kicking Sluts in the Vagina,” have been common to Facebook for some time, but campaigns against them began when a Facebook representative commented to the BBC on its decision not to remove that kind of content, stating, “Just as telling a rude joke won’t get you thrown out of your local pub, it won’t get you thrown off Facebook.” The pub analogy comment circulated among feminist activists on Facebook, and it was quoted widely on blogs, sparking a series of petitions that circulated for months, demanding the removal of the pages. When Facebook failed to respond, online activists organized a Twitter hashtag Day of Action, #notfunnyfacebook, to further pressure Facebook to enforce its own terms of service and hold its users accountable. Finally, following the Twitter action, Facebook elected to delete a few of the pages. It also allowed others to remain, so long as they were retitled as parodies.

The victory came as a half-hearted one for activists, who, with more than 180,000 signatures and hundreds of Twitter participants on their side, had not been able to call Facebook to account. New pro-rape pages are still being posted. One I just visited is called “That one slut you have always wanted to kick in the face.” After scrolling past three nearly identical wall announcements explaining how I could make easy money at home today (not involving, as I had first assumed, being “slutty”), I found a handful of nasty comments, all so poorly spelled it would be difficult for them to retain any air of menace. Then I recalled the anonymous person who scrawled “FAGETS” on the wall of a student organization I worked with in college. Then I saw what the page was really used for: with the “tag a user in this post” function, fans of the page could add the name of their intended target to their wall post, and that target would potentially see the post and the threat. It made me queasy.

If it was not clear before, we must understand now that Facebook wasn’t built for us — it was built for the profit of the very few. That Facebook is of value to the public as a communications platform is only important to Facebook insofar as it allows them to sell targeted advertising against our own speech. Its governing document, the Terms of Service, has been repeatedly applied unfairly and without accountability to its users, as its purpose is to legally protect Facebook from our conduct, not provide us with a free space, or even a safe space. Facebook needs to be only as minimally welcoming to us so as to ensure our return to use it again. And that we might use Facebook as a public square for activism? Not even in the business model.

Continue reading at:   http://www.alternet.org/sex/153406/why_is_facebook_protecting_pro_rape_language_and_abuse_of_women__/

Posted in Abuse, Equal Treatment, Feminist, Hate Crimes, Hate Speech, Misogyny, Murders, Rape. Tags: , . Comments Off on Why is Facebook Protecting Pro Rape Language and Abuse of Women?

Transphobia and mean streets

September 12, 2010 — Suzan

From The Milwaukee Wisconsin  Journal Sentinel: http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/102662829.html

Reposted with permission

By Michael Munson And Loree Cook-Daniels

Sept. 11, 2010

On May 7, 2010, Chanel (Dana) Larkin, 26, was fatally shot in the head by Andrew Olaciregui, 28, who had met her on a Milwaukee street and asked her to engage in a sexual act. Olaciregui pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless homicide in the case on Aug. 31, according to the state’s online court database. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.

Although commercial sex work is a notoriously dangerous profession, it would be a mistake to dismiss this death so simply. For Larkin also belonged to another demographic group with an outrageously high early fatality rate: She was an African-American transgender woman.

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) is a coalition of 40 U.S. nonprofits that work with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) victims of violence and police misconduct. In its 2009 Hate Crimes report, NCAVP documented 22 murders caused by anti-LGBT prejudice. Of those 22, half were transgender women.

Of the remainder, most were biologically male but dressed femininely with an unknown gender identity but who were dressed femininely or were otherwise gender non-conforming when they were killed, therefore making it likely that the vast majority of murder victims were gender variant.

Furthermore, 79% of the victims were people of color. Larkin’s murder may have been relatively unusual for Milwaukee, but it fits an alarming national pattern, down to its timing: Milwaukee’s 2010 PrideFest was June 11 to 13, barely four weeks after Larkin’s death. Nationally, 55% of 2009’s documented anti-LGBT murders took place in a 14-week period that includes most cities’ LGBT Pride celebrations, when LGBT people are most visible.

Larkin’s commercial sex work was likely related to both her race and her gender identity. African-Americans still face rampant racism, economic discrimination and educational neglect. A 2001 national study found that Wisconsin had the country’s lowest African-American high school graduation rate, at 40%. A 2005 study showed that the top three reasons for verbal or physical harassment in schools are appearance, sexual orientation and gender identity. Obviously, young African-American gender variant students are clearly at high risk of bullying or worse in schools and consequently are highly likely to leave school without graduating.

Like many of her peers, Larkin did not have a GED. She also had been unable to afford to legally change her name and ID. Therefore, even though she clearly looked female, whenever she applied for job and was asked for identification, she would have had to explain why it said she was male and had a different first name.

Employment discrimination against transgender people – while technically illegal in many places, including Milwaukee – is rampant. A recent national study of 6,450 transgender people found that 97% had been harassed or mistreated at work, and 47% had been fired, not hired, or denied a promotion because they were known to be transgender.

African-American transgender people were twice as likely to be unemployed (26%) as were other participants in this pre-recession survey. Since it doesn’t require a GED or ID, commercial sex work makes sense to many young African-American transwomen. Unless or until a client learns you are transgender. Then you’re at high risk of joining the NCAVP and Transgender Day of Remembrance murder victims lists.

Here, too, widespread social attitudes play a role. Many transwomen are killed during or right after sexual acts or sexual negotiations, by someone they’ve just met. The man may think, “If I had sex with a woman who turns out to have a penis or was born male, am I gay?” Some people’s homophobia is so strong that they apparently prefer to become a murderer rather than be thought of as gay. And so they “reclaim their manhood” by killing the person who “deceived” them.

Racism. Homophobia. Transphobia. Discrimination. Legal, financial and medical barriers to changing your name, ID, and/or your body to match who you are in the world. All of these contribute to the loss of vibrant people like Larkin, people who are valued and much-loved and who are active members of their communities.

At her funeral, dozens spoke of Chanel’s love, Chanel’s smile, Chanel’s humor, Chanel’s care. She was a leader in Sisters Helping Each Other Battle AIDS (SHEBA), a program of Diverse and Resilient, where she had been active for years. She took care of friends and community members. And now she is gone.

We need to work to make sure no more Chanels are lost to a fatal mix of prejudices. We need to root out homophobia and transphobia and racism wherever they exist so that people can be educated and employed in peace. We need to educate employers, protect schoolchildren, help people earn their GEDs and make it simpler for people to get ID that matches who they are.

Most of all, we need to care about people like Larkin as much as she cared about others.

Michael Munson is the executive director and Loree Cook-Daniels is the policy and program director for FORGE, a national transgender organization headquartered in Milwaukee.

Posted in Abuse, Hate Crimes, Murders, Racism, Social Justice. Comments Off on Transphobia and mean streets

Medical treatment carries possible side effect of limiting homosexuality

August 15, 2010 — Suzan

From The LA Times:  http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-adrenal-20100815,0,5576220.story

A prenatal pill for congenital adrenal hyperplasia to prevent ambiguous genitalia may reduce the chance that a female with the disorder will be gay. Critics call it engineering for sexual orientation.

By Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times

August 15, 2010

Each year in the United States, perhaps a few dozen pregnant women learn they are carrying a fetus at risk for a rare disorder known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The condition causes an accumulation of male hormones and can, in females, lead to genitals so masculinized that it can be difficult at birth to determine the baby’s gender.

A hormonal treatment to prevent ambiguous genitalia can now be offered to women who may be carrying such infants. It’s not without health risks, but to its critics those are of small consequence compared with this notable side effect: The treatment might reduce the likelihood that a female with the condition will be homosexual. Further, it seems to increase the chances that she will have what are considered more feminine behavioral traits.

That such a treatment would ever be considered, even to prevent genital abnormalities, has outraged gay and lesbian groups, troubled some doctors and fueled bioethicists’ debate about the nature of human sexuality.

The treatment is a step toward “engineering in the womb for sexual orientation,” said Alice Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University and an outspoken opponent of the treatment.

The ability to chemically steer a child’s sexual orientation has become increasingly possible in recent years, with evidence building that homosexuality has biological roots and with advances in the treatment of babies in utero. Prenatal treatment for congenital adrenal hyperplasia is the first to test — unintentionally or not — that potential.

Continue reading at: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-adrenal-20100815,0,5576220.story

This CAH is a referred to as a rare disorder.  It seems as though the cure they are seeking is not for CAH but rather for lesbianism.  Never mind how this sounds like something cooked up by Dr. Mengele, why should lesbianism be something in need of a cure?

On digging deeper the little Mengeles doing this research seem very concerned about cranking out “feminine” girls who will grow up accepting their feminine lot in life.

This starts raising all sort of question regarding the ethic of the Mengeles proposing this.

Would they say support a medication that could prevent autism, a rather frequent birth disorder if it say had a side effect of causing a 100% likelihood of the infant being born gay or lesbian.

When living in a world where right wing religious fanatics wield so much power it is reasonable to not only question proposed treatments for the genocide of lesbians in utero but to ask if these same researchers might not have played a role in the spread of AIDS.

There I have said it…  Given voice to the paranoid conspiracy question my gay male friends and I first asked when the Dispensationalist/Dominionist Taliban Christians first came to power and nearly immediately gay men started dying left and right while the right wingers in power did next to nothing to deal with it.

Just Say No to Pre-Natal Genocide of LGBT/TQI People

Posted in AIDS, Fascism, Hate Crimes, Human Rights, Innateness, Intersex, Misogyny, Nazism, Quackery, Religion, Right Wing Bug F*** Insanity, Science/Biology. 1 Comment »

Have transsexuals become easy targets?

August 10, 2010 — Suzan

From BBC News:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10803570

10 August 2010 Last updated at 10:57 ET

By Chris Summers BBC News

Kellie Telesford, Destiny Lauren and Robyn Browne were all murdered

A man has been convicted of murdering a transsexual prostitute in north London. Destiny Lauren was one of a number of transgender people to suffer violence, and there are concerns such attacks are on the increase.

Because he always denied murder, it is impossible to know what motivated Leon Fyle to kill Destiny Lauren, a pre-operative transsexual born Justin Samuels.

In the witness box he claimed she performed a sex act on him, but he said she was alive and well when he left her flat.

But after strangling her and stealing her mobile phone, some cash and a ring in November 2009, Fyle got on a bus and went to a brothel in King’s Cross, where he paid £250 to have sex with two women.

Murders are obviously at the extreme end of the spectrum and remain very rare.

But while figures for transphobic attacks are not collated nationally, Bernard Reed of the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (Gires) said they were on the increase.

He said this was partly because of the rising number of people living openly as transsexuals.

Continue Reading at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10803570

Posted in Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Murders. 5 Comments »

Desert Religions Run Amok

July 31, 2010 — Suzan

Religion, all religion oppresses using ignorance and superstition to perpetuate cruelty upon cruelty.

Islamic extremists like those asserting Sharia Law and the Taliban are some of the worst of the worst.

I am going to quote from the following post on another blog:  http://momento24.com/en/2010/07/31/image-of-an-afghan-woman-shattered-the-world/

Trigger Warning!!! Do not click on this link if you are easily disturbed by photographs of Atrocities

Text from site:

The Time published in its cover a surprising and disturbing picture, a portrait of Aisha, a young Afghan woman of 18 years old, who was convicted by a Taliban commander to cut off her nose and ears for not following the rules of her community.

Aisha posed for the photo because she wants “the world to see the effect of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan’s women, many of which resurfaced in recent years.”

The photograph is accompanied by a solid story by Baker Aryn about how “Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban and how they fear a resurgence of them.”

The journalist from The Time said he “thought a lot about whether to put this picture on the cover of The Time. First, he wanted to make sure the safety of Aisha and to ensure that she understands why she would be at the cover. She knows that she may become a symbol of Afghan women who had had to pay for the Taliban’s repressive ideology.” It was also confirmed that she is being kept in a secret and protected place by armed guards and sponsored by the NGO Women for Women of Afghanistan. “

Continued at:  http://momento24.com/en/2010/07/31/image-of-an-afghan-woman-shattered-the-world/

By The Way…  It was St. Ronnie Reagan who armed the Taliban and helped them come to power.  Including initially supplying them with the Stinger missiles that are now shooting down our helicopters and killing our military personnel.

No gods, No masters

Posted in Hate Crimes, Human Rights, Islamo-Fascism, Poverty, Rape, Religion, Social Justice, Uncategorized. Comments Off on Desert Religions Run Amok

Fort Worth Christo-Fascists urge city to overturn gay-friendly policies

July 14, 2010 — Suzan
It is time that people start realizing that there is no difference between the Christo-Fascists extolling bigotry as a traditional value and the Taliban.  They are both misogynistic and homophobic ideologies that deny freedom and equality to women as well as LGBT/T people.
Along with banning the burqa we need to start taxing  churches including the salaries of those sky god peddlers and all their property and assets.
From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Fort Worth churchgoers urge city to overturn gay-friendly policies

By MIKE LEE

Posted Tuesday, Jul. 13, 2010

FORT WORTH — More than 100 people from local churches urged the City Council on Tuesday night to overturn some of the policies that the city adopted last year in the wake of protests after arrests at the Rainbow Lounge, a gay bar on the near south side.

One patron was seriously injured during the “bar check” on June 28, 2009.

After weeks of protests by gay activists and sympathizers, city officials adopted several proposals recommended by a task force.

Among them were more training for employees and the appointment of a Police Department liaison to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

Other proposals, such as extending health and retirement benefits to gay couples and covering sex reassignment surgery under the city’s health insurance, are still being studied.

On Tuesday, speakers said the city went too far and didn’t take their Christian beliefs into account.

Too often we give in to the bigotry of these religion waving bigots.  In doing so we only empower them and encourage them in their practice of un-American forms of hate.  No living in or visiting to this country should ever be denied their inalienable rights, especially based on the rantings of insane bigots who tend to not only be misogynist and homophobic but racist as well.
Posted in Christo-Fascism, Discrimination, Equal Treatment, Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Human Rights, Misogyny, Nazism, Racism, Religion. Comments Off on Fort Worth Christo-Fascists urge city to overturn gay-friendly policies

The Banality of Evil

May 7, 2010 — Suzan

Hannah Arendt used that phrase to describe Adolf Eichmann.

Over the course of my life time I have met a few very evil people. People who though seemingly very nice I have later learned were members of the KKK, John Birch Society or other viciously racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic or misogynistic organizations.

What is being exposed regarding the criminal conspiracy of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergy is a perfect example of how monstrously evil people can at once nice cultured people and at the same time do things like child rape, lynchings and the commission of genocide.

Willow has stated that she has corresponded with some of these people and they have exchanged pleasant conversations. She then extrapolates from those exchanges that other sisters view of these people as monsters is inaccurate. She cites the very confused Dr. Lawrence’s friendship with these people as an example of how they couldn’t possibly hate transsexual people without noting how the Nazis used Jewish collaborators to aid them in their commission of genocide against all Jewish people. The Nazis even had a name for these collaborators, who they called Sonder Kommandos.

The cowardice of people like Rekers and Bailey which compels them to keep their own homosexuality/transgenderism/transsexuality hidden while attacking other who are out and proud is identical to those one occasionally learns about. Like the leader of the American Nazi party who was Jewish, or the leader of Aryan Nation who was half black.

It is easy to say, “But these people were nice to me.” It is rare for people who actually have the position of power that garners respect within Academe to display the snarling vicious mind that is the mien of Fred Phelps and his cult of evil minions.

More often one finds a Martin Heidegger, someone insightful, cultured, even charming as well as vicious bigot and a Nazi.

One thing I have discovered about Janice Raymond is that her anti-transsexual ideology is motivated not by feminism but by Catholicism. The same motivator that drives Maggie Gallagher in her vicious campaign to deprive LGBT/T people the right to marry their partners.

I was raised Catholic and at an early age saw that it used religion as justification for a wide range of bigotry including vicious Antisemitism, homophobia and some of the vilest misogyny one find anywhere outside of fundamentalist Islam. At the same time the church introduced me to art and music such as Bach and Handel.

Which is the true face and is it not just possible that the smiling face of the culture is not just a mask that hides the banality of their evil?

Posted in Hate Crimes, History, Human Rights, Unequal Treatment. 10 Comments »

If You Think the Civil War Ever Ended, Think Again

April 9, 2010 — Suzan

Some people have taken me to task because I am an unabashedly left wing anarcha-feminist and atheist who looks at the oppression of people with transsexualism and people with transgenderism in a context that goes beyond just transphobia in its various disguises and place us into the context of being a legitimate minority class of peoples.

Thus when I hear the right wing Christo-fascists spew misogyny that would deny women the right to control their own reproductive choices I see it as part of the same ideology that condemns LGBT/T people by denying them basic civil rights and full equality.

These same people tend to be racist as well as imperialistic supporters of the tyranny of the multi-national corporations and their destruction of workers rights.

In the US this movement is fascist and takes the form of embracing neo-Confederate family values.

The Following article appeared on Alternet

If You Think the Civil War Ever Ended, Think Again

By Adele Stan, AlterNet
Posted on April 8, 2010, Printed on April 9, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146366/

When I first moved to Washington, D.C., I had hardly a stick of furniture, so I boarded a bus to take me to the nearest Ikea, which was in a Virginia mall. Quite unfamiliar with the territory, I watched out the window with curiosity as the bus traveled along the chain-store lined route.

Soon I noticed we were traveling along a road called the Jefferson Davis Highway. I was stunned, and a bit sick to my stomach. How could it be that a highway was named after a man who made war against the United States, all so the citizens of his region could continue to hold human beings in chains? All so slave masters could continue to rape the women they claimed to own. The children of these unions were usually enslaved by their own fathers, often acting as servants to their white half-brothers and -sisters.

Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/news/146366/if_you_think_the_civil_war_ever_ended%2C_think_again

Posted in Hate Crimes, Right Wing Bigotry, Social Justice, Unequal Treatment. Comments Off on If You Think the Civil War Ever Ended, Think Again

Pope’s immunity to prosecution may be challenged in Britain

April 4, 2010 — Suzan

By The Associated Press
Sunday, April 4th, 2010 — 5:29 pm

Protests are growing against Pope Benedict XVI’s planned trip to Britain, where some lawyers question whether the Vatican’s implicit statehood status should shield the pope from prosecution over sex crimes by pedophile priests.

More than 10,000 people have signed a petition on Downing Street’s web site against the pope’s 4-day visit to England and Scotland in September, which will cost U.K. taxpayers an estimated 15 million pounds ($22.5 million). The campaign has gained momentum as more Catholic sex abuse scandals have swept across Europe.

Continue reading at: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0404/popes-immunity-prosecution-challenged-britain/

Posted in Catholic Church, Hate Crimes, Homophobia, International, Male Privilege, Misogyny, Pedophilia. Comments Off on Pope’s immunity to prosecution may be challenged in Britain

Pope apologizes for priests’ child sex abuse

March 21, 2010 — Suzan
Pleads to keep the jewelry, satin dresses and red Prada pumps.
Time to disestablish Catholicism.  The con game is some 1700 years old and has murdered and enslaved more people than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined.  These crimes are only the latest in a long list of crimes against humanity.
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, March 20th, 2010 — 6:50 pm

Pope Benedict XVI apologised Saturday for Irish priests’ child sex abuse in a letter with far-reaching implications, but victims said it was not enough to address the growing scandal.The pastoral letter, which came with the sex abuse scandal having spread to several countries, including the pope’s native Germany, also said Irish bishops had “failed” in addressing the problem.

“You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry,” the pope said in the long-awaited letter to Irish Catholics to be read in all Irish dioceses, in which he also expressed “shame and remorse.”

Continue reading at: http://rawstory.com/2010/03/pope-apologises-priests-child-sex-abuse/

Posted in Catholic Church, Christo-Fascism, Hate Crimes, History, Male Privilege, Religion, Social Justice. 2 Comments »

Vatican fights to distance Pope from child sex scandals

March 14, 2010 — Suzan

From Raw Story

The Vatican fought attempts to link Pope Benedict XVI to child sex abuse in a counteroffensive on Saturday against widening paedophilia scandals.

“It is clearly evident that in the past few days there are some who have sought — with a dogged focus on Regensburg and Munich — elements to personally implicate the Holy Father in questions of abuse,” spokesman Federico Lombardi said.

“It is clear that these efforts have failed,” he said on Radio Vatican.

On Friday, the pope’s former diocese of Munich confirmed a report that, as an archbishop in 1980, the pontiff approved housing for a priest who had been accused of forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform oral sex.

Six years later, the priest was given a suspended prison sentence for child sex offenses. The archdiocese said he still works in Bavaria, with no known repeat violations.

Continue reading at:  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Vatican_fights_to_distance_Pope_fro_03132010.html

Posted in Catholic Church, Hate Crimes, Rape, Uncategorized. 2 Comments »

What is Christo-fascism?

March 3, 2010 — Suzan

Sharon, a friend of mine as well as one of the editors over at TS-SI suggested that perhaps I should define “Christo-fascism” as people react rather harshly to my using that phrase.

I am an atheist.  That means I think the very idea of their being an invisible patriarch in the sky or for that matter an invisible matriarch in the sky is pretty absurd.  I don’t take the cop out of declaring myself spiritual rather than religious because I find all the New Age stuff equally absurd.

Christo-fascists behave in a manner that makes them virtually if not literally identical to Islamo-fascists.  Both demand that the state impose harsh religion based laws that impinge upon the human rights of minority groups within their cultures as well as misogynistically denying women both equality and the right to control their own bodies.

One element of Christo-fascism is the giving of primacy to the fetus over the mother in matters of health and well being, denying abortion even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman carrying the fetus. Thus reducing the value of women’s lives to their bearing of children and justifies all sorts of discrimination based upon the expectation of that being their primary role in life.

At the store where I work I see women and girls clad in the Christian version of the burqa, similar cult like costumes including anachronistic skirts down to the ankles and identical hair styles trailing their home schooled or religious schooled quiver full behind them.

While this can be dismissed as simple cultist behavior, rabid right wing Christianity is impacting our ability to learn actual science in public schools due to their demands that creation mythology be given equal weight to birth of the universe physics and evolution.  Christo-fascism is present in the attempts to rewrite history and present a revisionist version with the founding fathers as Christians when many were Deists at most and were quite likely agnostic free thinkers or even atheist the way Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine were.

Fascism is characterized as a totalitarian form of government with a close partnership between the state and corporations.  Religious fascism be it Christo-fascism or Islamo-fascism can be characterized by the destruction of any wall of separation between church and state.  Religious law is seen to define civil law.

In the past the anti-sodomy laws were an example of such interaction between church and state as are censorship laws.

The anti-abortion, anti-sex education and anti contraception movements led by the rabid right wing Christianist factions are some examples of Christo-fascism.

Christo-fascists are leading the fight against marriage equality.  They are the ones who libel marriage equality with lies, fiction and hyperbole.

They use and abuse their tax exempt status to campaign and raise money to pass laws that deny LGBT/T folks their Constitutionally guaranteed rights.  Their representatives in congress further their goal of the establishment of a theocratic state governed by Biblical Law rather than the Constitution as set forth by our founding fathers.

LGBT/T folks are used as scapegoats utilizing the same playbook and much the same rhetoric found in anti-Semitism and racism with the additional language of perversion and pathology.

The alliance with the rabid right wing politics espoused by the Republican Party is as overt as it is repellent.  Since the years of FDR the conservative movement has aligned itself with policies that closely resemble those of the Axis Powers of WW II.  Open racism, homophobia and misogyny are used as tools to stir near lynch mob violence as a campaign tool.

One sees it in the rhetoric directed towards President Obama by Tea Baggers and Birthers alike. It is as though the Catholics, the Fundamentalists, the John Birchers and KKK have formed a party based on hate.

The Christo-fascists are the storm troopers.

When they oppose same sex marriage they are acting in a manner that is un-American in that they are denying their fellow citizens equal rights as guaranteed in the 14th amendment to the Constitution.  Their lies are of the same nature as the lies propagated in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Now many think I am over reacting.  Yet every day I hear or read a fresh hate spiel.

One of the big stories this year has been regarding “The Family”, a secretive Christo-fascist cabal of ultra right wing Republicans documented by Jeff Sharlet in his book, “The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power”.

Members of this cabal have been caught supporting the proposed law in Uganda that would make homosexuality a capital offense.  Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, there are American Christian ministers calling for the same thing.  I am not speaking of the self anointed Fred Phelps and his Klan of inbred neo-Nazis for Jesus.  No, I am speaking of ministers with huge McMega Churches like the ones found in the suburbs of metroplexes across America.

They call for Biblical law and death for homosexuals.  Although that call is remarkably silent when it comes to calling for a death penalty for pedophile priests/ministers.

These calls for Biblical Law are also rather selectively chosen from books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus.  They tend to ignore other equally emphatic prohibitions found in verses surrounding the few minor references one finds to homosexuality.

Fighting the homosexual agenda has become a major fund raiser for these churches in the same manner as fighting women’s access to safe and legal abortion has been. I believe we ignore at our own peril the precedent that has been set by the words of support and lack of condemnation regarding the misogynistic pro-life movement people who have actually gone out and murdered Doctors who provide legal and safe abortions.

Any Christian organization with “Family” in its name is probably a proponent of Manson Family Values and not any sort of valuing of the rights of people. The only people whose rights and families they value are those they consider the chosen, the elect, the saved.

“Born again” bears a startling resemblance to the old battle cry, “The south will rise again!”  While the text features misogyny, homophobia and trans phobia writ large and filled with blood libels the subtext contains the racism and hatred of the poor that so characterize right wing totalitarian ideology.

Pam’s House Blend often gives me all the illustrations I need to make my point regarding Christo-fascism.  Here are a couple of examples I recently gleaned from her blog:

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/15382/know-your-smear-campaign-how-the-catholic-hierarachy-lies-claims-gays-attack-religious-freedom

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/15380/catholic-charities-of-washington-cuts-off-its-nose-to-spite-its-face

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/15374/gary-randall-opposing-death-sentence-for-gays-is-perverted-tolerance

I could go on and go to other references. But here are some names to watch for, people who are clearly Christo-fascists and are very powerful:

Pope Benedict, William Donohue, Tony Perkins, Donald Wildmon, James Dobson.  The list could go on and on, filling this blog for days.

I could back my claims with You Tube videos of their calls for atrocities.

You can live in denial just as people in the 1930s did when Sinclair Lewis wrote “It Can’t Happen Here” or one can be forewarned and forearmed.  I exercise my rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and legally own a firearm for self defense.  Perhaps others who can legally do so should also consider that as an act of prudence.

Posted in Atheism, Christo-Fascism, Classism, Discrimination, Economic Issues, Feminist, Hate Crimes, History, Human Rights, Misogyny. 1 Comment »

Vanderbilt Muslim Chaplain Says He Supports Executing Gays

February 2, 2010 — Suzan

The following is over on Queerty

Does believing that gays should be put to death qualify as a religious freedom? If you’re not actually murdering these people, we’d say yes. Believe whatever the hell you want to believe, crazy persons; that’s your right here in America. But it probably doesn’t make students at Vanderbilt University feel any better about Awadh A. Binhazim, the Kenyan-born University Muslim Chaplain, who just told students he supported this Islamic belief.

Posted in Hate Crimes, Human Rights, Religion, Social Justice. Comments Off on Vanderbilt Muslim Chaplain Says He Supports Executing Gays

Documents suggest Pope Pius XII more concerned about Soviets than Nazis

February 2, 2010 — Suzan

From the World Jewish Congress

02 February 2010

Two Italian researchers have found previously unknown correspondence about a meeting held in November 1944 between Pope Pius XII and the British ambassador to the Holy See, Francis D’Arcy Osborne. According to the papers, kept in the British National Archives in London, Osborne told the Catholic pontiff that the British government wanted him to issue a public appeal on behalf of the 400,000 Hungarian Jews who were being deported to the Nazi death camps at the time. However, Pius said that he was under pressure to condemn alleged abuses perpetrated by the Soviets against Catholic civilians in Poland and in the Baltic countries. Osborne reportedly told the pope that he had seen no evidence that the Russians had committed any such atrocities, and that even if they had, they could not be compared to the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis.

Continue reading at:  http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/main/showNews/id/8862

Posted in Hate Crimes, History, International, Religion, Uncategorized. 1 Comment »

New Federal ‘Hate Crimes’ Law Challenged on Constitutional Grounds

February 2, 2010 — Suzan

[ As I have come to note “Family Values” is Christo-Fascist form of newspeak for Nazi values of hate and bigotry.

People need be aware that religion taken as a whole has never supported human rights or equality and that they constantly lie saying they have.

Never mind the fact that Christianity and Islam have brought some 2000 years of heinous religious wars. Lets take the last 500 years:

They supported the murder of “witches” with some respected historians saying the numbers murdered were in the millions.

They supported European imperialism in the Western Hemisphere that resulted in the genocide of millions of Native Peoples.

They supported the colonization of Africa and Asia.

They supported the slave trade, slavery and opposed the abolition of slavery in the US.

They opposed women’s suffrage, the Equal Rights Amendment and feminism.

Pope Pius XII supported Hitler,  Mussolini and Franco.

The same Christo-Fascists opposed to LGBT/T rights also opposed civil rights for African Americans and women’s rights, including but not limited to reproductive rights.

From CNSNews.com

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/60842

Tuesday, February 02, 2010
By Susan Jones, Senior Editor

(CNSNews.com) – A conservative civil liberties group is challenging the constitutionality of the recently enacted federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009.

The new law, attached to a defense authorization bill that President Obama signed on October 28, 2009, makes it a federal crime to attack someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center says it elevates people engaged in deviant sexual behaviors to a special, protected class of persons under federal law.

The lawsuit naming U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on behalf of three pastors and the president of the American Family Association of Michigan.

All of the plaintiffs “take a strong public stand against the homosexual agenda, which seeks to normalize disordered sexual behavior that is contrary to Biblical teaching,” the Law Center said in a news release.

“There is no legitimate law enforcement need for this federal law,’ said Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center.

“This is part of the list of political payoffs to homosexual advocacy groups for support of Barack Obama in the last presidential election,” Thompson continued. “The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin.  It elevates those persons who engage in deviant sexual behaviors, including pedophiles, to a special protected class of persons as a matter of federal law and policy.”

According to the Law Center, of the 1.38 million violent crimes in the U.S. reported by the FBI in 2008, only 243 were considered to be motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation.

The four plaintiffs are Michiagn Pastors Levon Yuille, Rene Ouellette, James Combs, and Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan.

The lawsuit alleges that the new law violates the plaintiffs’ rights to freedom of speech, expressive association, and free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, and it violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment.  The lawsuit also alleges that Congress lacked authority to enact the legislation under the Tenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

The lawsuit says the Hate Crimes Prevention Act “provides law enforcement with authorization and justification to conduct federal investigative and other federal law enforcement actions against Plaintiffs and others deemed to be opponents of homosexual activism, the homosexual lifestyle, and the homosexual agenda,” thereby expanding the jurisdiction of the FBI and other federal law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies.

Robert Muise,  who is handling the case, said the new law promotes two Orwellian concepts: “It creates a special class of persons who are ‘more equal than others’ based on nothing more than deviant, sexual behavior.  And it creates ‘thought crimes’ by criminalizing certain ideas, beliefs, and opinions, and the involvement of such ideas, beliefs, and opinions in a crime will make it deserving of federal prosecution.”

He said it gives government officials the power “to decide which thoughts are criminal under federal law and which are not.”

The Thomas More Law Center describes its mission as defending and promoting “America’s Christian heritage and moral values, including the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life.”

Posted in Christo-Fascism, Hate Crimes, History, Religion, Social Justice, Uncategorized, Unequal Treatment. Comments Off on New Federal ‘Hate Crimes’ Law Challenged on Constitutional Grounds

The Family: The Christo-Fascist Mob That Rules the United States

January 23, 2010 — Suzan
Posted in Christo-Fascism, Hate Crimes, Human Rights, Misogyny, Religion, Social Justice. Comments Off on The Family: The Christo-Fascist Mob That Rules the United States

I Will not Mourn Mary Daly

January 6, 2010 — Suzan

I am disgusted with some of the blog posts I have read regarding the death of that vile bigot, Mary Daly.

I consider myself a feminist of the left.  Not a cultural feminist of the nature espoused by Daly.  She started out a Catholic theologian.  She was full of crap and mythology when she was a Catholic. She was full of crap and mythology as a feminist.

I for one never believed in ancient matriarchal cultures usurped by a later patriarchy.  I always put her writings regarding the non-supported by archeological finding ancient matriarchies  in the same garbage pail where I put Von Daniken’s “Chariots of the Gods” and the Atlantis myths.

But women born transsexual have a particular reason for not mourning Daly.  The woman was a hateful bigot, the only difference between her and  a KKK Grand Dragon is that she wore academic robe instead of Klan robes.

Daly helped create the language that is used by all anti-transsexual bigots.  In Daly’s book Gyn/Ecology she labeled us as “Frankensteinian”, preaching that transsexualism was a “male problem” (conveniently erasing our T to M brothers).  She is the one who started the bullshit about our existing in a contrived and artificial condition.”

Many of the worst enemies of transsexuals both female and male have been highly respected academics.  Just as often we forget that Universities are factories that serve the same corporate masters as well as governments by generating “facts” (often of dubious nature) and prostituting their reputations to further forces of bigotry and oppression.

Just as highly respected academics in the past have generated research showing people of color to be inferior so to have people like Daly contributed to the oppression and worsening of the lives of people born with transsexualism.

However, Daly’s worst offense, one reported by numerous sources, is in the role she played in furthering the academic career of Janice Raymond.  It is alleged that Daly was conducting a sexual relationship with Raymond at the same time she was serving as adviser to Raymond on her Ph.D. thesis that eventually became “The Transsexual Empire.”  If these charges are true they would call into question the legitimacy of both parties.

Such a challenge to the credibility would call into question the academic standing of both party.

I have read both Daly and Raymond in the past and consider Daly to be at best a minor intellect and her work to belong more in the mythology section than in the feminst section.

Do not expect me to mourn.  In fact I am glad we are rid of the old bigot.

Posted in Culture, Feminist, Gender, Hate Crimes. 2 Comments »

Exemptions allowing churches to refuse to employ gays to be scrapped following pressure from EU

November 23, 2009 — Suzan

Proof that Europe is much more respectful of freedom and equality than the US and its kowtowing to Christo-fascism.  Time to eliminate “faith based initiative funding” at tax payer expense that discriminates against LGBT/T people.  It is no different than the government funding the KKK.  While we are at it de-license groups like the Catholic adoption services, who have actually acted like extortionists recently by threatening to end services in Washington DC if DC recognizes and legalizes equal marriage rights.

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk • November 22, 2009 – 16:37

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2009/11/22/exemptions-allowing-churches-to-refuse-to-employ-gays-to-be-scraped-following-pressure-from-eu/

The European Commission is putting pressure on the British government to drop the exemptions from equality legislation by religious organisations who currently have the right to refuse to employ LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) staff.

The opt out allows churches and other organisations to refuse to employ gay people in order “to avoid conflicting with the strongly held religious convictions of a significant number of the religion’s followers”. Although there have been successful cases at employment tribunals questioning the implementation and interpretation of the opt-out

The Observer reports that the Commission wrote to the British government to warn that it has not fully implemented EU directives that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexuality.

The National Secular Society had complained to the commision saying that the current exemptions “illegal discrimination against homosexuals”.

The Commission reportedly agreed with the complaint saying “exceptions to the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation for religious employers are broader than that permitted by the directive”.

EU equal opportunities commissioner, Vladimir Špidla, told the Observer: “We call on the UK government to make the necessary changes to its anti-discrimination legislation as soon as possible so as to fully comply with the EU rules.”

The ruling means the government will be be forced to place new clauses into the Equality Bill which is currently making its way through parliament. But it will still allow churches to refuse to employ a gay man as priest for example.

“This ruling is a significant victory for gay equality and a serious setback for religious employers who have been granted exemptions from anti-discrimination law,” gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told the Observer.

“It is a big embarrassment for the British government, which has consistently sought to appease religious homophobes by granting them opt-outs from key equality laws. The European Commission has ruled these opt-outs are excessive.”

Christian charity Care told the Observer: “If evangelical churches cannot be sure that they can employ practising evangelicals with respect to sexual ethics, how will they be able to continue?”

Posted in Atheism, Culture, Hate Crimes, Human Rights, LGBT/T, Religion, Social Justice, Uncategorized. Comments Off on Exemptions allowing churches to refuse to employ gays to be scrapped following pressure from EU
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