Cerabino: Gay People Need to Get Guns
March 19, 2010 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
I must admit when I first read this post I found it to be somewhat amusing. However after a little more consideration and knowing how politics work in this country, I believe Frank Cerabino is onto something here.
According to his article on the Palm Beach Post:
Gay people need to get guns.
It’s the quickest way they can rise above second-class citizenship in Florida.
Nothing activates state lawmakers more than pleasing the National Rifle Association. If our state lawmakers were made to wear NASCAR-style jumpsuits to display their sponsors, the NRA’s logo would be plastered all over them.
This explains why we have a state law, over the objection of many big businesses, that allows Floridians to bring their guns to work.
It also explains another shoot-’em-up law that removes the “duty to retreat” from any confrontation, giving Florida gun owners greater license to fire at people they consider threats both on the streets and in their homes.
What and How Much is it Going to Take?
Movies and TV shows with gay characters could be ineligible for a “family-friendly” tax credit in Florida under a little-noticed provision tucked into a $75 million incentive package that Republican House leaders hope will attract film and entertainment jobs to the state.
The bill would prohibit productions with “nontraditional family values” from receiving a so-called family-friendly tax credit. But it doesn’t define what “nontraditional family values” are, something the bill’s sponsor had a hard time doing, too.
“Think of it as like Mayberry,” state Rep. Stephen Precourt, R-Orlando, said, referring to The Andy Griffith Show. “That’s when I grew up — the ’60s. That’s what life was like. I want Florida to be known for making those kinds of movies: Disney movies for kids and all that stuff. Like it used to be, you know?”
[For the full article, see here.]
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli: “It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ’sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly,” he wrote. Colleges that have included such language in their policies — which include all of Virginia’s leading schools — have done so “without proper authority” and should “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia.” (See here.]
In fact: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s campaign to make sure that every LGBT person can be fired for being gay is expanding to his state’s public universities. (See here.)
And, of course, there is the Obama Justice Department aggressively affirming DOMA in federal court, even linking its need with the specter of incest and pedophilia should it be overturned; the Obama administration dragging its heels on rescinding DADT; Obama not signing a stop/loss executive order so that Gay military personnel wouldn’t be discharged for being admittedly Gay; allowing same-sex marriage, or any civil right, to be put to a vote of the electorate; the continuous defaming and lies perpetrated by assorted professing “Christians” and politicians regarding Gay people; the erroneous appeal to selected verses of the Bible to erroneously and irrationally seek to justify hateful rhetoric that bears false witness and discrimination against Gay people.
It seems to me that the humiliation, indignities, and patent inequality visited upon LGBT people is about to reach a critical mass that demands (and will result in) expressed outrage in the form of meaningful, coordinated grassroots and organizational activism!
Frivolity; reveling in second-class sexual outlaw status and subcultures; demeaning and defaming oneself by use of pejorative and hateful words as self-identifiers; making nice with strident homophobes by trying to reason with them; allowing clergy and politicians to gain power, prestige, and wealth on the backs of LGBT people; in any way sticking a finger in the eye of potential Straight allies; giving credibility and money to homophobic churches by attending them; giving money to LGBT rights organizations and many professional “activists” that merely content themselves with being in proximity to influential politicians and drink the Kool Aid of feel-good rhetoric devoid of substantive civil rights gains, all the while frequently making a handsome living by so doing; allowing civil rights to be put to popular vote rather than having them adjudicated by the courts where they rightfully belong; settling for crumbs of incrementalism, such as Domestic Partnerships, Civil Unions, and the like; denying the fundamental importance of the institution of marriage for same-sex couples; settling for anything less than the very same civil and sacramental rights that heterosexuals enjoy, are both retarding the cause of full and equal civil rights and also giving tacit permission for ignorant and/or mendacious clergy and politicians to externalize the hate in their hearts by using LGBT people as their targets for that hate.
Regardless of rhetoric or seeming “gains,” separate is not equal!
Unless and until LGBT people and allies demand full equality for LGBT people, and do so in a coordinated and sophisticated fashion as occurred in the African American Civil Rights movement, increasing indignities, and even rescinding of some civil rights, will occur, as the strident homophobes will become increasingly emboldened in direct proportion to the psychological, social, and political lethargy of those whose very humanity and civil rights are on the line!
More from Rev. Dr. Jerry Maneker at: ChristianLGBTRights.org!
Excluding Gay-Themed Productions From Tax Credit
March 8, 2010 by Gay Agenda News Team · 1 Comment
Movie and TV productions with gay characters could be ineligible for a tax credit being considered in the state House.
Current state law grants tax credits on productions considered “family friendly” — with no smoking, sex, nudity or profane language.
The proposal by Republican Rep. Stephen Precourt of Orlando would increase the credit and expand the field of disqualified productions as those that include any “exhibit or implied act” of nontraditional family values and gratuitous violence.
Precourt says he’s not targeting the gay community but that shows with gay characters would not be something he’d want “to invest public dollars in.”
Florida City Supports Repeal of Gay Adoption Ban
March 5, 2010 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
Lake Worth officials are hoping a resolution they passed Tuesday night will help change state adoption laws.”Being that our state representative Mary Brandenburg is bringing it up this year in the House, I thought it would be good if we showed that the city of Lake Worth supports the efforts to end the ban on gay adoption,” Commissioner Cara Jennings told WPBF 25 News on Wednesday. City commissioners voted unanimously to support the repeal of gay adoption laws. “I’ve done a lot of research and it seems like we’re the first city to pass a resolution of this kind,” Jennings said.
Cheney Has ‘Em On Their Feet
February 18, 2010 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
CPAC — the Conservative Political Action Conference — opened its annual event this morning in Washington, in a mood far different from last year’s meeting.
Back in February 2009, President Obama had skyrocketing polling numbers, Democrats had just added to their majorities, and Republicans were down in the dumps. Whatever energy conservatives had was hard to find.
No longer. Tea Parties have sprouted up all over the country, Republicans scored big in recent elections, the Obama numbers are falling, and the Right has been heartened by Dem departures in the Senate.
And the change in mood is like night and day at CPAC. For conservatives, on the defensive during the latter years of the Bush administration and a bit dispirited after the Obama victory, 2012 can’t come soon enough.
One thing conservatives may be ignoring, however, is polls show that the only ones with worse numbers than the Democrats are … the Republicans.
But CPAC is not about Republicans; it’s about conservatives. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) made that clear this morning when he said he would rather have 30 Marco Rubios in the Senate than 60 Arlen Specters. Now, I think that’s a line that probably would have made more sense when Specter was a Republican. But his point was clear: many on the Right would rather have fewer Republicans in the Senate with strong conservative values — like Rubio, who is running in Florida — than having 60 Republicans who are less committed to conservative positions. And when he mentioned the name of Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida who is the GOP establishment candidate in that Senate race, the result was loud boos.
