Portraits of Equality: Spain

As our country slouches backwards in terms of equality for women and gays, thanks in large part to our homophobic, misogynistic President, it is very easy to become discouraged. Barack Obama not only used homophobia and sexism as tools to win his election, he turned around and told women and gays and lesbians to “get over it” and “where else are you gonna go?”. Unfortunately, like so many victims of abusive partners, most gays and women quit protesting and fell in line.

Some of us did not. To use a well worn cliche, we’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore! It would be easy to give up, given our country’s sad state of affairs when it comes to equality, not to mention our President’s shameful, cowardly attitude towards civil rights for women, gays and lesbians. But we will not. And sometimes we need a little motivation to harden our resolve and push back against tyranny and discrimination with all our might. That said, I would like to offer a portrait of a country that gets it in this regard. Many of you are probably already aware that Spain is one of a handful of countries in the world with legal gay marriage, but I think their record on equality for women has been overlooked to some extent.

“Machismo” is deeply ingrained in Spanish culture. In the years that I have spent there, I have seen it firsthand. Women get catcalled and whistled at on the street, by construction worker and bank executive alike. Traditional household duties still fall under the scope of “women’s work”, regardless of the fact that most women in Spain are now working outside of the home as well. There is still an older generation of women that grew up under the right wing dictatorship who never worked, never learned how to drive, never had much of an education, and still dress “de luto” (in mourning) after their husband’s death (although the latter is becoming rarer and rarer).

Given that history, or perhaps because of it, it is amazing the steps that the Spanish government has taken to make sure women are equal partners in the further development of their country both culturally and politically. Most of this has happened under the direction of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose promise to bring change to the country was more than just empty rhetoric:

During his first term as prime minister, Zapatero pushed through reforms including electoral parity, measures towards increasing female representation on company boards of directors, and strong legislation against domestic violence.

After winning a second term in March, Zapatero went even further, appointing Spain’s first female-dominated cabinet and irritating conservative army officers by giving the defence portfolio to Carme Chacon, who was in her seventh month of pregnancy at the time.

Many of you are familiar with the picture of Chacon inspecting the troops:

Spanish Defense Minister, Carme Chacon

But Zapatero not only put a majority of women in his cabinet, he created a whole new cabinet ministry to protect the rights of women called the “Ministerio de Igualdad”, or the Ministry of Equality. As one might expect, there was quite a backlash from the old guard.

Bibiana Aido, Minister of Equality

The defence of women’s rights is undoubtedly a praiseworthy government policy, but just how far should it go?

(don’t you just love that paragraph??? like, um, let’s not make it go so far as to make men feel uncomfortable, ok?)

The question is under debate in Spain, where the country’s first equality ministry has launched initiatives that have earned 31-year-old Bibiana Aido – the youngest minister in Spanish history – more sneers than cheers so far.

Not only did Aido announce a telephone hotline to help men adapt to a ‘new model of masculinity’ and wife batterers to ‘channel their aggressiveness’ before resorting to violence. She went as far as tackling the structures of the Spanish language, proposing that the masculine-gendered word ‘miembro’ (member) be given a feminine equivalent, ‘miembra’….

A ‘telephone for men’ initially planned for wife batterers will also help other men ’solve their doubts, because many of them feel lost’ as the ‘patriarchal system’ begins to crumble, Aido explained.

Men will be able to call the hotline to discuss issues such as relationships, divorce, and fatherhood.

Some feminist groups welcomed the ‘good initiative’, while the conservative opposition People’s Party (PP) lambasted the idea that violent men could be dissuaded by a telephone line as ‘almost ridiculous’.

Aido elicited even more sneers and jokes and when addressing a parliamentary commission with the words ‘miembros y miembras’.

Masculine-gendered ‘miembro’ refers to members of a group, men or women, while the feminine-sounding word ‘miembra’ does not exist – at least not yet.

Renowned authors slammed ‘miembra’ as a ’stupidity’ and as an example of ’savage feminism’, but feminist linguists sympathized with Aido’s attempts to wage the battle of equality on the deepest level – that of language.

The Spanish language was forged over millennia of male domination over women, the daily El Pais pointed out. The word ‘hombre’ (man) can be used as a synonym for ‘human being’, to mention just one among countless examples.

As women have increasingly entered the workforce, language has become slightly more equalitarian, with words such as ‘ministra’ (female minister), ‘abogada’ (female lawyer) or ‘jefa’ (female boss) now forming part of everyday speech.

And refreshingly, the man who appointed her to the position actually had the integrity to stand up to such criticism,

Academic guardians of the Spanish language accused Aido of not even knowing grammar, but Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero stood by his minister.

‘All the fields are adequate for waging the battle in favour of equality,’ said Zapatero, who wants his Socialist government to play a groundbreaking role in promoting women’s rights worldwide.

And you know, a funny thing happens when you do the right thing. You might even begin to notice a change in behavior from even your most ardent detractors. Take for example the conservative opposition party, the Partido Popular…

Despite the PP’s contempt for the activities of the equality ministry, party leader Mariano Rajoy recently appointed young women to top party posts, conscious that female votes contributed to Zapatero’s election victory.

Spain’s Minister of Equality has been in the news lately for a short film competition that was organized by the ministry. The competition, – es + (less is more) matched high school students with filmmakers to make short films that highlight the problem of violence against women. The films are meant to start a dialogue about violence among Spain’s youth. If you can read Spanish, you can learn more about this project here and here. Take a look at the winner and a runner up. Just a head’s up, these videos do depict violence against women.

In the first video, at the beginning, the friend asks if the woman is all right, and she says she is fine. After it rewinds back she instead asks for help.

The second video ends with echoes of “estamos mirandote”, or “we’re watching you”. I think that’s a good mantra for all of us who support women’s equality, especially to our leaders. We’re watching you, and we won’t forget.

It’s all about the marketing.

And remember, it’s always easier to understand politics when you keep marketing and branding in mind.

Priceless

That’s the last line of a scary column I just read over at Fox. And while this is yet again another Democratic bashing rant, the point of view is something I’m not used to. The intent seems to be the solidification of the cult of personality of Obama. His message of Change is actually a way of discrediting both political parties, with the desired outcome, I suppose, a one party system with Obama at its head.

Brand Obama’s accomplishments are Brand Obama’s. They are not the Democratic Party’s. If anything, for Candidate Obama to become President Obama, the Democratic Party was as much, or more, of a stumbling block than John McCain. The fact is, when Obama was railing again Washington on the campaign trail, the Democrats were in charge on Capitol Hill and part of that railing was directed at them (and the people loved it).

Brand Obama knows the difference between his brand and the Democratic Party. As a consummate brand manager you can bet that he’s going to take every opportunity to underscore that difference

Well, we’ve been seeing that just today (and we’ve been screaming it at the top of our lungs for the past year), what with Obama’s stance on detainees in Afghanistan, just the latest in anti-liberal stances since he got sworn in.

The problem is not that the Democrats are somehow hamstringing Obama, the problem is that Obama is not, and has never been, a Democrat. His “brand” exists for one thing only, to further himself and “the brand”. It has nothing to do with helping the American people or making our world safer and more just. And while I disagree with the author that being like Reagan is a good thing, I do agree with the comparison,

Brand Obama is proclaiming (just like Brand Reagan did) that he is not of Washington and that he is taking action with the people and for the people. He’s saying “It’s not about you politicians in Washington; it’s about us folks in the heartland and what we need.”

Actually, he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, just like Reagan. A faux populist whose real interests are more in line with his moneyed backers than “us folks in the heartland”. But Reagan got away with it, so why wouldn’t he emulate him? But now that Obama is on top, he needs to distance himself from the Democrats, because, well, he’s really not got that much in common with real Dems. The really dangerous part about this kind of rhetoric coming from Obama’s most ardent supporters is that it undermines the very foundation of our democracy. The argument against “bipartisan politics”, and the “old school” bickering is laced with soaring ideals of togetherness and unity. But if you really look at what their saying, it’s just a call for one party (or brand) rule. I found the following one of the most fiendish ways of defending this yet. Our information culture makes competing politicians irrelevant. The Leader has his finger on the very pulse of what his followers are feeling and acts on their behalf.

Old-style politicking just won’t work anymore, because people aren’t going to put up with it. After decades of marketplace choice and with the rise of an ever increasingly interactive Internet, they want and expect results from their government.

Here’s what I mean:

Politicking equals meeting voters’ perceptions in order to stay in power. This has nothing to do with satisfying real needs and everything to do with controlling the way things are perceived by the voter.

It is also issue– and ideology– based, meaning that the politician says what people think he or she wants to say. This is like putting a product on the market before test marketing it and shaping it to genuine needs —- a bad idea.

But Real Marketing — which is the foundation for poli-marketing — equals discovering real needs and then satisfying them. In poli-marketing this translates to a politician identifying the real needs of the voters and then setting about to address them whatever it takes. It’s simple —- move from the issues-based politics of the past to needs-oriented politics.

Success in politics is performance-based like never before because President Obama’s victory gave the electorate a renewed sense that they had power to change their government. I’m not saying all the old political realities are gone, but the ratio of poli-marketing to politicking has shifted distinctly in the former’s favor.

Maybe we should just get rid of elections all together and just start picking our leaders with focus groups. Anyway, I guess we just have to assume that Obama really does have our best interest at heart. Yeah right. Success in politics is performance based like never before??? I’d say it is more image based than ever before. Obama’s performance (or lack thereof) is immaterial. He IS the agent of change. They’ve branded him that way, and that’s all that matters. There isn’t any real substance behind it. And by the time the shit hits the fan and we’re all standing in bread lines, most Americans will be too freaked out to speak out in opposition. As for that “renewed sense of power” to change government, that’s about as real as the “renewed sense of power” from taking that Enzyte crap. And when something does go wrong, he can always blame the Democrats and that way remain above the fray.

If this stimulus fails, he can throw Congress under the bus by blaming them for originating it (”I had to sign it because we had to do something!”), but if it succeeds, he’ll get the credit

How does that help the people in the heartland?

And while we’re at it, let’s use Obama’s own corrupt Chicago politics background to elevate his stature and bash the Democrats at the same time

For example, just look at Illinois Senator Roland Burris raising the specter of corrupt Democratic politics and the whole raft of ethical problems that confronted cabinet selections. Or the entire State of California sinking under debt and an obstinate Democratic political machine.

Because Obama has NOTHING to do with that fiasco, right? But getting back to the Dem bashing/Obama fluffing, let’s nip that idea of holding the criminal Republican administration in the bud before all you “Democrats” start getting any crazy ideas. Remember you’re Obamans now, and that kind of interparty bickering is so last century:

Now you have the possibility that the Democrats are going to run some kind of “Truth Commission” to scrutinize the Bush years.

Wow. What a terrible idea.

Who exactly is calling for this move? The American people? Hardly. This is old school: when you’ve got the upper-hand you stick it to the other guy and bet on the voter not caring or noticing. This is not needs-oriented and so the Democrats must drop this because it is a risk a political party cannot afford to take today.

My guess is that President Obama is going to reject this idea outright and decisively. He’s got to, because even the most solid brands have limits and an investigation of a prior president by a sitting president could badly wound his brand since it could not help but be seen as a partisan act.

And “wounding his brand” would be bad for the American people how? Oh, I forgot, because their every happiness depends on the glorification of everything Obama. It is an end unto itself. If the brand is untarnished the American people will be happy. It couldn’t be that his cronies don’t want anyone looking too closely at their wheelings and dealings, could it? Nope. So here are your marching orders all you ex-Democrats:

The Democrats would do better with the following basic approach:

1) drop all thoughts of re-visiting the past (accept President Obama’s advice and look to the future and solving the problems of the American people)

2) generously give President Obama the victory in the stimulus and get behind him across the board (don’t jostle for the spotlight)

3) give him support in his mortgage plan and go a step further by insuring that Republicans can get firmly on board this one

4) hit the road, get out of Washington and show that Brand Obama has opened their eyes to poli-marketing and that their concern is the American people and not inside-the-beltway squabbles.

In other words STFU and get with the program. Oh, and while you’re at it, stop whining about us acting like Republicans. Because we’re totally not. And not because we aren’t caving to their every whim, but because we are BEYOND politics, so there. Isn’t that what they’ve been saying to us Hill supporters since last February???

So let me get this straight. When things go wrong, blame Democrats. When things go right, credit Obama. When Obama acts like a Republican, that’s because he’s transcendent. When he disagrees with Democrats it’s because they’re not embracing change. Gotcha.

Since I started this post at the end of the article, I’ll finish at the beginning of it. The author makes the following statement to Democrats. The irony is that it is the exact message that Democrats should be sending to Obama:

Too much pride in oneself or in any accomplishment inevitably leads to a fall and there’s an even bigger fall coming if you are proud for all the wrong reasons — especially when those reasons include mistakenly thinking that someone else’s accomplishments are your own.

But who needs to worry about a fall when you have your own political party to blame all of your mistakes on. Now that’s what I call marketing.

Don’t worry guys. It’s natural to objectify women.

This is NOT an object.

I am no scientist, but this kind of thing always makes me just a little bit uncomfortable. It’s as if they’re trying to find an excuse for bad behavior.

It may seem obvious that men perceive women in sexy bathing suits as objects, but now there’s science to back it up.

New research shows that, in men, the brain areas associated with handling tools and the intention to perform actions light up when viewing images of women in bikinis.

See, the scientists say that this is natural, and somehow a consequence of evolution, and men needing to pass on their seed, or some BS like that…

Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it’s a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.

I guess it couldn’t possibly be caused by living in a society that teaches men that women are nothing but “tools” to be used for their service or their sexual pleasure. Nope, just the way evolution built them. I’m curious though, didn’t women have those same incentives to find fertile men to spread their genes? I mean the tone of this article just reinforces the (in my opinion) learned tendency to see women as passive objects while men are the ones doing the action. But not only are men not responsible for their actions, they don’t even know that they’re doing them.

“They’re not fully conscious responses, and so people don’t know the extent to which they’re being influenced,” Fiske said. “It’s important to recognize the effects.”

Like I said, I’m not a scientist, but I call bullshit. Grown men are not incapable of controlling their “primal urges” when they see a pretty woman. Give me a break..

I guess women must have the same kind of glazed over drooling reaction to a hot man too, right?

This study looked specifically at men, and did not test women’s responses to similar images.

Oops, my mistake. I guess they just don’t need that data to make any kind of judgment about their results. They have all the proof they need from the “real world” anyway:

The findings are consistent with previous work in the field, and resonate, for example, with the abundance of female strip clubs in comparison to male strip clubs…

I guess they’re talking about straight male strip clubs, because I could probably find them a 1:1 ratio for gay strip clubs in any major US city…but then again, in these brainy scientific “women are from venus, men are from mars” type studies they just pretend that gay people don’t exist. And perhaps its all that socialization that women are put through to repress any sexual urges they might have that might explain the lack of straight male strip clubs…just sayin’.

But don’t worry girls, because most guys aren’t evil, they just succumb to “benevolent sexism”…..{{ducks to miss the shrapnel of exploding heads}}

The participants, 21 heterosexual male undergraduates at Princeton, took questionnaires to determine whether they harbor “benevolent” sexism, which includes the belief that a woman’s place is in the home, or hostile sexism, a more adversarial viewpoint which includes the belief that women attempt to dominate men.

So I guess you should be happy that he thinks that you should exist to serve his every need instead of harboring resentment about your attempts to make him look bad. —just a side thought, I wonder if they measured the penis length of the guys in this study…wonder what that might show…oh well, I’ll leave it up to the professionals.

And although he thinks of you in the same way as he thinks of a drug addict or a homeless person, there’s one big difference:

Previous research found that people tend to similarly dehumanize those who are homeless or drug addicts, although the phenomenon in this case is somewhat different, Fiske said. People have reactions of avoidance toward the homeless and drug addicts, and the opposite for scantily clad women.

You lucky girl, you.

But the most important thing they learned in this study is that women should further self-censor and be aware that it is their fault when men act inappropriately, because of course, they can’t help themselves.

Women should be aware of how they are perceived when wearing provocative clothing…

“Many men make foolish choices because of sexual attraction,” he said.

“The suggestion might be that there’s some hard-wiring there that can interfere with the average man’s ability to interact on deeper levels with really hot looking stranger women in bikinis,” he said.

Yeah, it’s called being a sexist jerk.

Civil Rights=Gay Rights

On March 5th The California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the validity of the voter approved Proposition 8. Both the Democratic Attorney General and the Republican Governor of the state are in agreement that the ballot measure should be invalidated.

On January 15, 2009, 43 friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Court to invalidate Prop 8 were filed, arguing that Proposition 8 drastically alters the equal protection guarantee in California’s Constitution and that the rights of a minority cannot be eliminated by a simple majority vote. The supporters represent the full gamut of California’s and the nation’s civil rights organizations and legal scholars, as well as California legislators, local governments, bar associations, business interests, labor unions, and religious groups.

This is not the first time that California voters have passed such a measure to write bigotry and discrimination into their state constitution. And if the Supreme Court does the right thing and invalidates Prop 8, it would not be the first time that the courts protected a minority from the bigotry of a majority of voters.

As Derald Granberg follows the legal challenge to Proposition 8 now before the California Supreme Court, he thinks back to 1966.

That year, in a case that divided Californians as much as same-sex marriage does today, the court overturned a voter-approved measure that had allowed housing discrimination based on race.

And while Prop 8 was barely approved by 52% of the voters, the 1966 measure was approved by an overwhelming 66% of voters.

Overwhelmingly approved by voters, Proposition 14 of 1964 invalidated the Rumford Act, which the California Legislature had passed a year earlier. The law had made it illegal for property owners to refuse to rent or sell to people because of their race. The ballot measure overturned the law.

In both cases bigoted people voted to enshrine in the constitution the discrimination of a minority. Ironically, some of the same people who were the target of the ‘66 proposition turned out to be some of the strongest supporters of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the Prop 8 vote. The reasons for that are wrapped in religious dogma and the refusal by some people to admit that civil rights for gay people are equal to civil rights for all minorities in this country. But until we recognize the fact that none of us are truly equal until all of us are truly equal, we will continue to face these sorts of divisive, prejudiced attempts to codify hate and discrimination.

I have no doubt that the Obama administration will remain silent on this issue, just as it did leading up to the vote for Prop 8. In fact, Obama’s own words, that he doesn’t believe in gay marriage (God is not in the mix), were used to encourage people to vote for the measure, and many of his supporters heeded those words. But some of us in the gay community know the truth about Obama. He is a homophobe. He doesn’t care about gay people, and despite his lies on the issue, his actions have proven this time and again.

Unfortunately our first African American President is on the wrong side of history in this civil rights battle. But then again that shouldn’t surprise considering some of his role models for the job.

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

So following that logic I suppose that some of the “excesses of the 1960’s” included fighting for civil rights, because at the time Reagan was all for allowing housing discrimination against African Americans,

A former actor named Ronald Reagan, who had opposed the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, was a campaign spokesman.

“If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house,” Reagan declared, “he has a right to do so.”

And just as repulsive as that notion seems to us now, the cowardly stance our current President has taken on this civil rights issue will be regarded with derision by future historians when they look back on his presidency. And rightfully so.

California Supreme Court: Don’t divorce us!!!

SILENCE=DEATH

FRC uncovers lesbian plot for world domination…

I don’t have much to add to this post from queerty, but it is worth spreading around just to show how ridiculous hate groups like the Family Research Council have become in their unending battle to eradicate homosexuality from our country.

As you all know from our secret meetings where we plan out our world domination, the gays are responsible for all the world’s ills– or at least that’s what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council believes. Our latest victory, according to the virulently homophobic jerk is to force America’s women to turn out litters of children. Nadya Suleman’s eight children are not the result of a sloppy fertility treatment, but rather, the result of procreating lesbians. You’re going to want to read this one.

Says Perkins:

“Last week, taxpayers learned that they would be partially liable for the family’s care through hundreds of dollars in food stamps and disability payments. The news fueled even more conviction that the fertility doctor should have refused the procedure. But is he really to blame–or are our courts? In California, the state Supreme Court made it virtually impossible for a physician to exercise his own judgment after two lesbians sued in 2001 for the right to be artificially inseminated over the doctors’ personal or social objections.”

I especially like the part about the taxpayers having to pay for her irresponsibly bringing so many babies into the world.  Does Perkins think she should have aborted some of them?  I guess as long as it is nice white christian women having “litters” of children its ok.

Now that the McCaughey septuplets are out of imminent danger, it’s possible to raise some impolite questions.

First off, what’s God got to do with it? Everyone from the parents to the doctors keeps talking about this being God’s will, as if the Almighty compelled Bobbi McCaughey to become a guinea pig for modern science…

…what about the responsibility of the McCaugheys’ wanting eight children with their family’s limited income and two bedroom home? If Mrs. McCaughey had done this serially, she would have been roundly condemned by a society that now, as a matter of federal law pushed through by “pro-family” conservatives, punishes poor women for having children they can’t afford. Predictably, a spokesperson for the conservative Family Research Council hailed McCaughey’s decision to disregard medical advice and not abort any fetuses as “a wonderful example for this country,” adding that it proves “the community can come together and provide for the need of those who are faced with a crisis pregnancy and are having difficulty thinking about how they’re going to provide for their new child.”

But Suleman, with her rather middle eastern sounding name, isn’t the first non-white person to be maligned or ignored for their procreation habits…

Indeed, the sextuplets naturally conceived and born to a black couple in Washington D.C. six months earlier received no support. They lived in a crowded apartment off the meager earnings from the father’s two jobs.

So here’s what we’ve got.  A Christian hate group scapegoating lesbians to justify their racist, hypocritical stance when it comes to fertility and women’s control over their bodies.  Nice.

What’s next? The Inquisition? Burning witches at the stake?

It takes "Courage" to torture people.

Many people like to think that because North Carolina voted for Barack Obama that we have become a “blue state”.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  First of all, Obama is NOT a Democrat.  As a consequence, Obama’s pandering to religious nutcases was just enough to push him over the top here.  That includes many Catholics in the state.  And no wonder Obama doesn’t want to do anything to help the LGBT community when his allies are going full steam ahead to try to drag us back to the Middle Ages.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh is starting a new ministry to gays and lesbians. Yet those who have embraced that identity may not like it.

The ministry is called Courage, and its aim, in the words of its executive director, is to “assist men and women who are afflicted with the thorn of same-sex attraction.” A 29-year-old international ministry with about 90 U.S. chapters, the Courage Apostolate will serve as a kind of support group — like Alcoholics Anonymous – for men and women who want to remain celibate.

Hmm…12 step away the gay.  These are the kinds of things that I thought had gone the way of the dinosaurs in the 70’s and 80’s when the medical community made quite clear that being gay is not an illness.  However the cowards in the Catholic Church continue to use such outdated comparisons to push their psychological torture on their parishioners.  But they are not content to keep the bigotry to themselves.  The Catholic Church of NC also wants to write their bigotry into the North Carolina Constitution, one of the few bible belt states that has thus far avoided doing so.

The move is part of a more aggressive push by the dioceses of Raleigh and Charlotte to march in step with the Vatican on the issue of homosexuality. On Feb. 24, the bishops of both dioceses will hold a news conference at the legislature to announce their support for an amendment to the state’s constitution defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman. The effort is intended to quash the possibility of same-sex marriage, should a court find North Carolina’s law prohibiting gay unions unconstitutional.

You can bet your ass I’M going to be at that news conference making so much fucking noise I’m probably going to get hauled off to jail.  The last thing these proven pedophiles and sex obsessed perverts deserve is to decide whether or not I can get married.  Especially during Freedom to Marry Week.  Consider this an open call to all NC gays and lesbians and our allies to join me in protest.  I will be updating this story through the next week and trying to organize a real protest presence at the news conference.  Meanwhile, anyone who feels the urge can contact the Diocese of Raleigh here:

Diocese of Raleigh
715 Nazareth St. | Raleigh, NC 27606
(919) 821-9700

I’ll also add the contact info for the priest who is spearheading this ghastly abomination, James Fukes at St. Julia Catholic Church in Siler City.

210 Harold Hart Rd
Siler City, NC 27344
(919) 742-5584

Mr. Fukes says this is just a natural extension from requests of parishioners. 

“There have been some people who asked for some ministry by the Catholic Church to help them deal with the challenges and difficulties they have and remain close to God,” he said.

DO NOT BE DECEIVED!!! This is not about gay people requesting help with their sexuality, this is about PARENTS of GAY CHILDREN who want to “fix” them.  This program will be nothing short of a torture chamber for thousands of gay and lesbian teens.  Because of torture groups like this, along with the general acceptance of homophobia, gay and lesbian teens are four times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers.  In fact 33% of all gay and lesbian teens will attempt suicide at some point.  And what kind of twisted minds are asking to serve as guidance to these teens?

Next month, the Rev. Paul Check, national director of Courage, will lead a workshop in Raleigh for priests and lay leaders. A priest in the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., Check has written widely on homosexuality, including one article in which he suggests that gay men come from broken homes or grew up alienated from their fathers and overprotected by their mothers.

“For example, many men with same sex attraction lack hand-eye coordination and as a result were spurned or the subject of jokes by their fathers or the neighborhood boys because they could not play certain sports easily,” Check wrote in the St. Austin Review’s November-December 2008 edition.

Are they fucking kidding me????  Yeah, and these bozos also used to think that being left handed was a sign of satanic  possession.  But don’t try to label them.  According to Check, this isn’t “reparative therapy” or “psychological counseling”,

He has also said homosexuality is treatable and was quoted in the National Catholic Register suggesting that Courage is needed because Catholics are “going to Protestant groups, like Exodus, that do very good work in this spiritual ministry.” Exodus International, based in Orlando, Fla., advocates “reparative therapy” to make gays straight. Its slogan is “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.”

Fukes, the Siler City priest, said there would be no attempt at reparative therapy in this diocese. “If people want psychological counseling, I can find someone for that,” said Fukes. “But that’s not the goal of Courage.”

No, the goal is to torture children.  If Obamacrats don’t want to stand up against homophobia, at least they might have the decency to stand up against torture.  And what REALLY gets my goat is that this is the same church that had to be called by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to be reprimanded about priests denying the Holocaust.

I know how you feel Chancellor Merkel.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, became the first world leader yesterday to condemn Pope Benedict XVI over his rehabilitation of an ultra-conservative British bishop who denies that Jews died in the Nazi Holocaust.

Ms Merkel called on the German Pope to reject publicly the views of Bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied that six million Jews were gassed in Nazi concentration camps. In a highly unusual rebuke to the Pope she said that she did not believe there had been “sufficient” clarification.

“This should not be allowed to pass without consequences,” Ms Merkel, daughter of a Lutheran pastor, said. “The Pope and the Vatican should clarify unambiguously that there can be no denial and that there must be positive relations with the Jewish community overall.”

It is also the same church whose priests have sexually abused tens of thousands of children in this country already.  We can not let their voice be louder than ours.  The lives of the next generation of gays and lesbians depend on it.  Are  you with me?  Let me know with a comment.

There are some things money can’t buy…

Getting elected with the promise to bring Change to Washington and to end the bitterness of partisan politics

–$750 million dollars

Passing a boondoggle of a spending bill to ensure your election in ‘12 with  more Democrats voting “No” than Republicans voting “Aye”

–$800 billion dollars

Using White House resources (taxpayer money) to fly in the 60th vote from Ohio to guarantee the passage of your “bipartisan” stimulus bill

–Priceless

 

…well, not exactly.

“There’s a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands,” Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) advised the pampered executives at a hearing yesterday. “It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?”

The Big Three said nothing, which prompted Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) to rub it in. “I’m going to ask the three executives here to raise their hand if they flew here commercial,” he said. All still at the witness table. “Second,” he continued, “I’m going ask you to raise your hand if you’re planning to sell your jet . . . and fly back commercial.” More stillness. “Let the record show no hands went up,” Sherman grandstanded.

By now, the men were probably wishing they had driven — and other members of the House Financial Services Committee weren’t done riding the CEOs over their jets. “You traveled in a private jet?” Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-N.Y.)

There is the price of the hypocrisy of it all.  Congress members show faux outrage over the excess of Detroit CEO’s flying into Washington on the taxpayers’ dime, but when it comes to the “centerpiece” of their party’s porkfest  economic recovery package, it is worth it to fly in Sherrod Brown.  Because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t pass it in time to give their President the photo op to sign the bill on President’s Day.  Obama must never be denied the opportunity to tie his “achievements” to those of Lincoln. 

For the record, Sherman, Ackerman, and Velazquez all voted for the stimulus bill.

But as most of us are aware, for the ruling class it has always been “Do as I say, not as I do”…

There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there’s your grandchildren’s future to loot…

Change?

Nope.  Same as it ever was…

Freedom to Marry Week

Just in time for Valentine’s Day!

Freedom To Marry Week – 4 things YOU can do to help

1. Ask for a Marriage License – Feb 12 thru 14
   Come support couples seeking licenses and share your story about why you support marriage equality. Since 2001, Marriage Equality USA® has engaged in annual marriage counter actions to render visible the discrimination that is enforced every day.   Click here for the nationwide list of action events – or check out the chapter pages for more information in your local area.
   
2. Attend the CA State Capitol Rally – Feb 16th
   Love and Marriage is a statewide community rally on Presidents Day Monday, February 16th from noon to 3pm where people from all over the state will join us on the steps of the Capitol to show our solidarity for the rights of 18,000 same-sex couples who were married and look forward to the day when those rights are available again, this time for everyone. Attendees are encouraged to come wearing white, leave seeing red. Celebrities, speakers, entertainment and thousands of like-minded people will attend. Co-sponsored by Equality Action Now, California Outreach, Marriage Equality USA, Equality California and many others. http://www.equalityactionnow.org/events.php#loveAndMarriage
   
3. Join the Equality California Lobby Day (Feb 17th)
   On Tuesday, February 17, register and join activists from across the state for a legislative lobby day at the California State Capitol. The lobby day will bring together diverse community organizations and leaders from across the state for a day of coordinated advocacy and activism to support Senator Lenos SR 7 and Assemblyman Ammianos HR 5 that would put the Legislature on the record opposing Prop 8 as an invalid revision of the CA Constitution. Register at http://www.eqca.org/site/pp.asp?c=kuLRJ9MRKrH&b=4948341
4. Watch this Video
   Visit the Courage Campaign’s Website and tell the Supreme Court to invalidate Prop 8, reject Ken Starr’s case, and let loving, committed couples marry. DEADLINE: Valentine’s Day

The latest report from New York City:

Hundreds of same-sex couples seeking to wed were turned away from the city marriage bureau Thursday, part of a nationwide protest aimed at recent decisions restricting the right to marry to a man and a woman.

Wearing signs that said “Just Not Married,” the activists were part of a wave of demonstrations expected throughout the day at marriage bureaus or county clerks’ offices from New York City to California, in communities large and small…

The protests, part of the 12th annual Freedom to Marry Week, were considered more important than ever this year because they come in the wake of California’s Proposition 8 vote that overturned gay marriage and just as New Yorkers look to their state Senate to pass legislation that could lead to legalized gay marriage…

In New York, same-sex marriages cannot legally be performed. However, Gov. David Paterson has issued a directive requiring that all state agencies recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

Please do something, anything, this week to show that you support marriage rights for ALL Americans. Thank you.

AP Fish Story

AP photo of Ms. Figge...

Ever since the AP lied when they ran a story during the final primaries that Hillary Clinton had dropped out of the race, those of us immune to the kool-aid have known that they are a thinly disguised propaganda outfit that exists soley to promote Obama and destroy his enemies. 

It is easy to see that they have no journalistic integrity or even rudimentary journalistic skills when you look at some of the other stories they cover.  I guess they’re so used to printing anything the Obama camp tells them without checking to see if they are lies, that it is spilling into coverage of their regular stories.  For example:

Jennifer Figge pressed her toes into the Caribbean sand, exhilarated and exhausted as she touched land this week for the first time in almost a month.

Reaching a beach in Trinidad, she became the first woman on record to swim across the Atlantic Ocean…

The 56-year-old left the Cape Verde Islands off Africa’s western coast on Jan. 12, battling waves of up to 30 feet and strong winds.

David Higdon, a friend of Figge who kept in touch with her via satellite phone, said she had planned to swim to the Bahamas, a distance of 2,100 miles, but inclement weather forced her to veer 1,000 miles off course to Trinidad, where she arrived on Thursday…

The Cape Verde Islands are actually about 2,500 miles from Trinidad.  That they wouldn’t even verify the distance should have been a red flag to begin with.  But anyone who has gotten past 4th grade math would be able to figure out that this is just complete bullshit.  If she left on Jan 12, and arrived on Feb 7th, which is when this story was published, that means that she swam about 96 miles a day for 26 days straight.  Supposing she swam a grueling 10 hours a day, that means that she was swimming at a rate of…..almost 10 miles per hour!  That’s incredible considering this:

“… The highest speed reached by a swimmer is 5.05 mph by David Holmes Edgar (US). Mark Spitz (US) in setting the 100 meter record of 51.22 secs. in 1972, required an average of 4.367 mph.”

But when has the AP ever cared about silly little things like facts?  Besides, isn’t the inspiration value more important than actual accomplishments?  That’s always been their philosophy when it comes to Obama anyway.   Apparently some newspapers that carry AP stories smelled something fishy about the piece…

To her credit, Figge never said she was going to swim the whole way. Her manager, David Higden, told the Guardian Newspaper in London that that would be physically impossible or would take years. He said Figge didn’t get in the water as much as she wanted because the waves were so high.

But most of the other news articles about her swim imply that she swam across the ocean.

So if the AP is not capable of performing simple math like basic multiplication, why on earth would we trust them to report on how the hundreds of billions of dollars in the “stimulus” are going to be spent?  That’s easy,  we shouldn’t.  And we shouldn’t believe half of anything that those propaganda hacks try to pass of as journalism.

51% in Government AND Finance.

I am one of the many in the pumasphere who advocate electing women to top positions in government. Not only do women sorely lack representation in line with their makeup of the population, many of us believe that they tend to more closely support the progressive and liberal ideals that we ourselves do.

As the global economic crisis deepens, maybe we should expand our scope to include advocating for higher representation of women in our economic/ financial industries that are also dominated by men.

The interrogation of the lions of British banking, many of whom have lost their jobs, began on live television Tuesday before the financial overseers of Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee. And in line with the usual math of the financial world, 18 of the 19 key people in the room were men.

“Clearly, something needs to change,” said Howard Archer, chief European and U.K. economist at IHS Global Insight in London. “You can argue that the men have made a right mess of it, and now the ladies should have a go.”

Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.  And a lot of people are starting to seriously consider this option.

As the global financial crisis deepens, the first rumblings of a gender revolution are underway in an industry long controlled by men…

In the United States, women hold 17 percent of the corporate directorships — and 2.5 percent of the CEO posts — in the finance and insurance industries, according to Catalyst, a U.S.-based nonprofit group that promotes opportunities for women in business.

“Maybe if we had some more women in the boardrooms, we may not have seen as much risk-taking behavior,” said Hazel Blears, one of two female members of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s cabinet who weighed in on the gender debate here this week.

While I’m not sure I agree with Ms. Blear’s generalization about women taking risks (risk taking is, after all, an important factor in being successful in the money biz–not to mention the fact that many women are risk takers), I do think that women are grossly underrepresented in the upper echelons of the world of finance.

The major obstacle to this, of course, is institutionalized sexism and long established gender roles in these industries.  The culture of how business is done must be changed, and the only way to do that is to increase the number of women who wield power in banking and finance.

Harriet Harman, the minister for women and equality, blasted the banking world for “discrimination and harassment” against women, including a culture of using lap-dancing clubs for corporate entertainment.

And I’m sure that is just the tip of the iceberg.  But at least in some parts of the world it looks like some countries are turning to women to help them crawl out of the economic abyss that we now find ourselves in.

Iceland is leading the way. Since its humiliating economic collapse, the island nation in the North Atlantic has turned over key levers of finance to women. It now has a female prime minister, and women lead two of its major banks, replacing men who were blamed for crashing the institutions with reckless excess.

Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, 66, has vowed to exercise “prudence and responsibility” in government as she cleans up the male-dominated system that sank the national economy.

“Men, especially young men, made a mess of things,” said Kristjan Kristjansson, the prime minister’s spokesman. “There is a strong discussion that women would have taken a more cautious approach in the financial sector.”

“You could call the financial sector almost like a men’s club,” he added.

Einar Mar Gudmundsson, an influential Icelandic writer, said in a phone interview from Reykjavik: “These financial vikings who made the country bankrupt were in a way like little boys playing with toys.” He said he would like both men and women to be involved in reconstructing the nation’s financial sector.

I especially like that last sentence.  This is not about who would do better, or if women are more prudent then men.  It is about equality, and sharing the failures and successes together without having to wonder what might have been had women been an equal partner in steering the global economy.  I think that arguments about who would do better are generally traps that lead to further stereotyping of gender roles, but if that’s what it takes to get more women in control, then I’ll turn a blind eye, even if there is anecdotal evidence to support the claim.

In France, Michel Ferrary, a professor at the business school Ceram, recently conducted a study that concluded that French companies with the greatest percentage of women in management have performed the best during the crisis.

For example, he said in an interview, BNP Paribas bank, whose management team is nearly 39 percent female, has weathered the crisis far better than Credit Agricole, where management is just 16 percent female.

Some of the evidence appears at face value to be quite intriguing, but I still would say that this is all circumstantial.

All-female banks are not the answer, he said. What is missing is gender balance. “Maybe if you have only women in a company, they won’t take enough risk,” he said. “If you have only men, maybe they will take too much risk.”

John Coates, a researcher at Cambridge University who once ran a trading desk on Wall Street, recently conducted a novel survey that analyzed saliva from 17 male traders in London’s financial district.

Coates concluded that traders made the highest profits when they had the highest levels of testosterone in their spit. The downside, he said, was that elevated testosterone also led to riskier behavior, a formula for disaster as well as profit.

“If you had more women on the trading floors, you would probably eliminate some of this instability,” Coates said in an interview.

Regardless of whether testosterone helps or hinders one’s ability to do business, I agree with the sentiment that there needs to be more balance.  I just hope that we avoid the trap of exaggerating differences rather than focus on the issue of equality.  In other words, women should be half of the financial business hierarchy because they are equally capable as men and make up half of the population, not because they compliment men’s risk taking qualities with feminine prudence.

It is probably a better idea to listen to the women who ARE at the top and hear what they think is the problem.  It seems like an infusion of new blood with more women in the banking and financial sector might be just the catalyst needed to shake things up.

“It’s an old boys’ network,” Sally Keeble, the committee’s only female member, said in an interview after the hearing.

Keeble said she was most disturbed that the top echelons of British banking seemed to rely on a “cozy consensus of like-minded people” unwilling to listen to those who might challenge their views. Adding more women to the mix, she said, might help change “this macho culture” and “produce the possibility of more internal challenge.”

“It’s a closed culture that needs to be opened up,” Keeble said.

That actually sounds like more of a practical reason for increasing the number of women in these industries than the amount of testosterone flowing through one’s veins. 

The bottom line is that the people in charge have screwed up royally.  It’s time to put some new people in charge.  And given that opportunity, it is only right that half of those given the chance to right our economy should be women.