Today's Mini Cultural Warfare Update

[solarbird]

I'm swamped with end-of-the-quarter/end of the year school stuff; that's why there haven't been any CWUs in a while. Here are some bits I've collected for the next major round that aren't from my usual sources.

This summer, things should get more back to normal. Sorry about the lame. My last final is Wednesday. Monday, I had to turn in a quarter-long group research project (normally 3-4 people) that I had to do myself; yesterday I had a lab practical (which sucked); tomorrow I have a major de facto final that is not technically a final exam but pretty much is and I need around 100% on it. Monday I have voice jury and Wednesday the technical final for Zoology.

Anyway, here's my nonstandard-sources CWU for today.

The founder and president of Abstinence Clearinghouse condemns - and rather goes crazy about - the new fewer-periods version of the birth control pill on Fox News; the Slog link I'm pointing to contains a clickthrough to original video. One thing interesting about this is that the current chief executive, Mr. Bush, spoke to the group's national conference in 2004;

Presidential candidate and currentformer Senator John Edwards (D-NC) quoted by an ex-aide as being "not comfortable with those people," where "those people" = t3h gayz; his campaign says he was quoted "out of context" but doesn't deny it; the Washington Blade has rather critical commentary; [Ed. Note: Oops.]

Russian nationalist crowd attacks gay rights supporters, including European Parliament members; Russian police arrest the victims, and are commended for doing so;

Reuters story on the young-earth Creationist pseudo-natural-history museum;

The C|Net story on the "Warriors for Innocence"-sparked mass journal deletion on Livejournal; most of the deleted journals have been reinstated with apologies. What's relevant about this is that if you do a little digging on the WfI founder/leader, she considers gayfolk to be exactly as bad as paedophiles;

A link to Sue of WfI's original letter to Livejournal; unfortunately, she's taken her journal friends-only, but I had previously captured key paragraphs;

A link to Sue's journal, discussing Cardinal Mahoney; the relevant parts for this LJ are where she comments on GBLT people; unfortunately, she's taken her journal friends-only, but I had previously captured key paragraphs;

Johann Hari writes about a previous PM of the UK who was apparently gay, and various condemnations for bringing it up at all;

Chief Executive Mr. Bush nominates anti-gay church activist - Dr. James Holsinger, Jr., mentioned in these Updates before - to be new Surgeon General; ABC News is kind enough to include a link to the paper, which I also provide.


----- 1 -----
“This is a real war on women, and a war on children.”
Posted by Dan Savage on May 24 at 19:56 PM
The Stranger

http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/05/this_is_a_real_war_on_women_and_a_war_on

A war on women and children? You mean economic insecurity? Millions of children without health insurance? A food stamp program amounts to starvation rations?

No, the war on women is about these new fangled birth control pills that eliminate a woman’s periods for as long as she takes ‘em.

[Blog entry includes original video. Abstinence Clearinghouse's homepage is here, and features a top-level link to video of Mr. Bush's address to their 2004 convention.]


----- 2 -----
Edwards uncomfortable with ‘those people’
Blade Blog
Washington Blade Online
(Undated but online as of 28 May 2007)

http://www.washblade.com/blog/index.cfm?blog_id=12834

Perennial Democratic strategist Bob Shrum drops a bombshell in his new book, according to a report in today’s Washington Post.

In the book, he says he asked former Sen. John Edwards at the outset of his 1998 Senate campaign, “What is your position, Mr. Edwards, on gay rights?”

“I’m not comfortable around those people,” was Edwards’ reply, according to Shrum.

To say the denials today from Edwards’ camp are unconvincing would be a gross understatement.

Harrison Hickman, Edwards’ pollster, who the Post says was in the room at the time he made the remarks, claims that Shrum, “is sensationalizing and taking out of context what was an honest discussion about [Edwards’s] lack of exposure to these issues and openly gay people. I don’t remember anything that expressed any kind of venom or judgment about gay people.”

Eric Schultz, an Edwards spokesperson, says Shrum is more interested in selling books than in the truth.

But Edwards’ people don’t deny the accuracy of the quote; it was conveniently “taken out of context,” they say.

“Those people?”

[More at URL]


----- 3 -----
Russian Police Detain Gay Activists
By JIM HEINTZ
Associated Press Writer
May 27, 6:14 PM EDT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_GAY_RIGHTS?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-05-27-16-29-46

MOSCOW (AP) -- Police detained gay rights activists, among them European lawmakers, as they tried to present a letter to Moscow's mayor Sunday in a demonstration that also attracted a hostile crowd of people who punched and threw eggs at the activists.

The letter, signed by some 40 European lawmakers, appealed the city's ban on a march that would have taken place Sunday to mark the 14th anniversary of Russia decriminalizing homosexuality.

Police quickly grabbed about a dozen demonstrators and forced them into a bus, including the Russian gay rights movement leader Nikolai Alexeyev. Police then hustled away others, including German parliament member Volker Beck, as opponents threw eggs and shouted: "Moscow is not Sodom!"

Marco Cappato, a European Parliament deputy from Italy, was kicked by one opponent as he spoke to journalists. Cappato began shouting: "Where are the police? Why don't you protect us?" and officers hauled him away as he struggled.

[...]

The Interfax news agency quoted a Moscow city spokesman, Mikhail Solomentsev, as praising the "cooordinated and polite actions of the police, who acted in strict accordance with the law."

[More at URL]


----- 4 -----
New museum says dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark
Reuters
Sat May 26, 2007 2:51PM EDT
By Andrea Hopkins

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2621240720070526

PETERSBURG, Ky (Reuters) - Like many modern museums, the newest U.S. tourist attraction includes some awesome exhibits -- roaring dinosaurs and a life-sized ship.

But only at the Creation Museum in Kentucky do the dinosaurs sail on the ship -- Noah's Ark, to be precise.

The Christian creators of the sprawling museum, unveiled on Saturday, hope to draw as many as half a million people each year to their state-of-the-art project, which depicts the Bible's first book, Genesis, as literal truth.

"What we've done here is to give people an opportunity to hear information that is not readily available ... to challenge them that really you can believe the Bible's history," said Ken Ham, president of the group Answers in Genesis that founded the museum.

While the $27 million museum near Cincinnati has drawn snickers from media and condemnation from U.S. scientists, those who believe God created the heavens and the Earth in six days about 6,000 years ago say their views are finally being represented.

[More at URL]


----- 5 -----
Mass deletion sparks LiveJournal revolt
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: May 30, 2007, 3:47 PM PDT

http://news.com.com/Mass+deletion+sparks+LiveJournal+revolt/2100-1025_3-6187619.html

Thousands of LiveJournal customers are rebelling against the company's recent decision to censor hundreds of sex-themed discussion groups, a broad swath that has led to the removal of literary critiques and fan-written fiction about Harry Potter.

LiveJournal, which is owned by San Francisco-based Six Apart, confirmed Wednesday that it deleted around 500 journals this week in hopes of better "protecting children." It said the deletion was prompted by activist groups, including one called Warriors for Innocence that claims to track sites promoting pedophilia, the sexual abuse of minors, and other illegal activities.

[...]

"As a queer, feminist writer who explores the darker aspects of human nature, many of my stories deal with incest, rape and child molestation," a LiveJournal member named "bitterfig" wrote. "As such, I belonged to and contributed to several of the communities which have been suspended and frankly I'm pretty offended. I don't like being lumped in with rapists and pedophiles and other 'monsters on the Web.'"

Practically any attempt to sort works of fiction into tidy piles of acceptable and unacceptable material, of course, is likely to invite controversy. Works by noted authors such as James Joyce, Henry Miller and William S. Burroughs have been lauded as masterpieces--and at other times prosecuted as obscene.

What has outraged the LiveJournal protesters is that the purging of discussions and accounts went far beyond what they say was necessary to target pedophilia. One post noted that two journals were deleted on the grounds that "they in some way encouraged illegal behavior" even though the accounts belonged to clearly labeled fictional characters in a role-playing game. Another deleted community was reportedly home to Spanish-language discussions of Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel Lolita.

[More at URL]


----- 6 -----
Copy of "Warriors for Innocence" letter to Livejournal
Sues Views
Online as of 27 May 2007

http://suesviews2.blogspot.com/2007/05/livejournal-and-six-apart-its-time-to.html

[Editor's note: This blog has since gone friends-only, presumably since it got discovered.]

Dear Six Apart,

I have found many ads on very inappropriate web pages that are hosted by LiveJournal.com. These ads are in close proximity to such subjects as Child Rape, Child Molestation, Child Abuse, Child Pornography, and other disturbing topics. I am sure that as a responsible and well respected company, you know nothing about this, just as the advertisers on LiveJournal do not.

[...]

Since there are literally thousands of sick pedophile and child sex sites like this on LiveJournal, merely requesting to have the ad removed from a single page or site will not stop the problem. The advertising companies have had to ask to withdraw their ads from all of LiveJournal.com in order to protect themselves and the reputations of their companies. I have emails from several advertising companies who have done just that.

[...]

It’s time to value child safety above free speech. It’s time to do the right thing. If morals will not compel you to do this, then maybe loss of advertising dollars will.

[More at URL]


----- 7 -----
I Hate Roger Mahoney
Sues Views
Online as of 27 May 2007

http://suesviews2.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-hate-roger-mahoney.html

[Editor's note: This blog has since gone friends-only, presumably since it got discovered.]

This is old news, but I still want to rant. Roger Mahoney (I refuse to call him Cardinal because he doesn’t deserve it) is sick, twisted, and should be in prison. He abuses his position of authority to further his twisted agenda: Pedophilia, Homosexuality, Rape and sexual abuse, Racketeering, Fraud, and many others.

[...]

In 1993 Mahoney help fund and produce the video A Journey for Understanding Gays and Lesbians in the Church. The video affirmed that there was nothing wrong with any “gay” or lesbian person whatsoever, that “being gay was a blessing and a gift,” and had “something prophetic toward remodeling the Church”. 2 ~ Sick bastard.

[More at URL]


----- 8 -----
Britain's gay Prime Minister
It was only forty years ago
johannhari.com
2 June 2007

http://johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1129

Has Britain already had a gay Prime Minister - only a few decades ago? The answer now seems to be yes. Brian Coleman, a Tory member of the London Assembly, finally pushed the rumours into the public domain last month when he said it was "common knowledge" in Tory circles that Edward Heath, Conservative resident of Number Ten Downing Street from 1970 to 1974, was gay.

[...]

But should we care? Does this submerged history matter? Peter Tatchell thinks it does. He says that the gay rights movement has been "fighting a great liberation struggle handicapped by an almost total lack of knowledge of our own past. Our minds are colonised by a straight version of history, where we gay people are invisible. Our existence has been erased from the historical record. Apart from Oscar Wilde, the only gay people who come to attention in the history books are mass murderers, spies, child abusers and men entrapped by the police in public toilets."

[...]

And it's revealing that the people most keen to scorn these revelations about the gay Prime Ministers in our past are the people who would be most hostile to gay Prime Ministers in our future. Andrew Roberts, a far right historian, sniped in the Daily Express that discussing the sexuality of dead figures is "a baleful phenomenon" which "adds to a new terror to death - that someone can be accused of performing then-criminal acts such as cottaging." He insisted Heath was suffering from "a rare for of thyroid complaint" that made him "asexual".

A gaggle of ugly right-wing commentators has declared that Britain will never again tolerate a gay leader. Simon Heffer of the Daily Telegraph says it is "undesirable" that "political parties or governments should have an unrepresentative number of homosexuals in their upper ranks. As the present Labour administration has demonstrated, it is difficult for ministers to grasp problems affecting the family if you don't have one." Glossing over the bizarre idea that gay people don't have families - does he think we hatch from an egg? - he continued, "The obsessive nature of politics that so absorbs homosexuals may also deny them a sense of perspective, and deny them a hinterland in which to retreat."

Similarly, Bruce Anderson - a colleague of mine at the Independent, who once charmingly called me "an uppity little queer" during a drunken rant - says, "A homosexual who seemed to be a contender for the premiership might be subjected to the most intense scutiny. Though homosexuals may be the beneficiaries of increasing tolerance, this would not extend to an attempt to adopt children. 'Jonny lives with Bob and Jerry' - possibly, but not in Downing Street."

[More at URL]


----- 9 -----
'Homosexuality Isn't Natural or Healthy'
Bush's Choice for Top Doc Compared Human Genitalia to Pipe Fittings and Said Homosexual Practices Can Cause Injury or Death
By JAKE TAPPER
June 7, 2007

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3251663&page=1

President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., wrote a paper in 1991 that purported to make the medical argument that homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy. Doctors who reviewed the paper derided it as prioritizing political ideology over science, and Democratic aides on Capitol Hill say the paper will make his confirmation hearings problematic, if not downright bruising.

Holsinger, 68, presented "The Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality" in January 1991 to a United Methodist Church's committee to study homosexuality. (Read the paper here.) The church was then considering changing its view that homosexuality violates Christian teaching, though it ultimately did not do so. Relying on footnotes from mainstream medical publications, Holsinger argued that homosexuality isn't natural or healthy.

[...]

Noting that Holsinger also belongs to a church that offers a ministry to "cure" gays of the sexual orientation, gay and lesbian rights advocates immediately protested Holsinger's nomination. "His writings suggest a scientific view rooted in anti-gay beliefs that are incompatible with the job of serving the medical health of all Americans," said the Human Rights Campaign in a statement. "It is essential that America's top doctor value sound science over anti-gay ideology."

[...]

Professor Eli Coleman, Director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota Medical School said that the paper seems to have a pre-1970s view of human sexuality. "I an't imagine that any scientific journal would be able to publish this material because of its very narrow views of homosexuality," he said.

In fact, if one of his students handed the paper in, Coleman would give it a failing grade, he said. "I find it rather outdated in terms of its scientific knowledge and also narrow in its view of homosexuality," Coleman said. "It concerns me because I think our public policy really should be based upon best available science."

"It's a totally faulty paper. The man doesn't know anything about human sexuality," said June M. Reinisch, Ph.D., director emeritus of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender & Reproduction. "There's clearly a political agenda in this paper. This is not a scientific paper."

[Ed. Note: Dr. Holsinger's paper is online here:

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Holsinger_on_Homosexuality.pdf

This is not his most recent anti-gay work; he's involved with a "gay conversion" church in Kentucky.]

Comments

[flirtaciousj.livejournal.com]

FWIW, Edwards is not currently a Senator; he gave up his Senate seat in 2004 when he originally ran for President and ended up in the VP slot.

I am cynically amused that Dr. Holsinger's critique of homosexuality is ostensibly anatomy based. If he believes in strict separation of the alimentary and reproductive systems, I guess he believes that oral sex is "unnatural" as well.

[solarbird]

I am full of the spazz.

BTW, in ref. to your icon: if the Democrats can't manage to pass something about the current administration, there is no reason to vote for them in 2008. So far, they have failed to do something. There's another try now, here, which is on DailyKOS as much as I dislike linking to them. I suggest that if you have ties to the Democratic party that you urge them to actually do something. Letting Mr. Bush continue to screw things up even worse while ass-raping the Constitution in the hopes of a bigger pickup in 2008 does not count as doing something.

[flirtaciousj.livejournal.com]

I'm actually an independent, I just like the icon. I've even voted Republican a few times in my youth, before the nutjob religious right hijacked the party; I tend to have libertarian sympathies.

The problem is "the Democrats" are not monolithic, and in the Senate they don't have the votes to really hold W's feet to the fire. Putting aside the veto issue, on war votes with Sen. Johnson out and Lieberman pro-war the math doesn't work. And there are even fewer votes for impeachment.

A lot of what went wrong the last six years was enabled by a Congress that failed its oversight responsibility. This Congress has already been much more active on that score. Even Republicans (such as Sen. Spector) have stepped up in this role, and as a result a lot of things (the DOJ mess, etc) that would have previously gone unnoticed are now spotlit. As for issues where that consensus does not yet exist, I have no problem with anger, with demonstrations to make our points, etc. After years of having the discussion parameters moved to the right, they are now moving, sometimes dramatically, to the left. But until some of the Republicans in Congress jump ship, there are limits to what can happen given political realities.

The left in this country has a rich history of splintering the moment it might have some power and responsibility. It would make me sad if it repeated itself in 2008, but I can't say I'd be shocked.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm upset that the Democrats aren't doing more, but there are some political realities here. The Democrats don't have veto-proof majorities, and some of their members vote with Republicans on key issues. The leadership must therefore compromise to enact legislation. As for investigations of Bush administration wrongdoing, several of them are underway, and that's the sort of thing that can't be rushed. About the only thing the Democrats did have the power to do that they haven't done is refuse to pass any funding bill for Iraq at all, and there are strong arguments against doing that.

As far as 2008 goes, look at the presidential debates. Not one Republican supports removing Don't Ask Don't Tell, and all of the candidates support removing it on the Democratic side. Some form of civil unions and domestic partnerships are supported by all of the Democrats (though often at the state and not federal level); none of the Republicans support increased rights for gay people at all. (Not to mention, most of the Republican candidates support torture, at least one wants to stop all *legal* immigration to this country, three don't believe in evolution and the other seven spent the last debate congratulating the religious beliefs of those that do, at least one (Paul) has a long history of supporting racist right-wing militias, and on and on.)

As far as Congress goes, a Democratic Congress will be necessary for a Democratic president to move forward on these issues and on issues like the war. If a Republican wins the presidency, a strong Democratic majority is needed to block him. A Democratic majority is also needed to balance Bush appointments to the judiciary at all levels. If they then fail to act, they'll deserve to be voted out of office. But abandoning them now because they haven't done enough to block a GOP president and right-wing majority (GOP+conservative Dems) in Congress would only make things worse and empower the exact elements you want them to stop.

I'm the first to criticize Democrats when they're in power, but that's simply not the reality right now.

[archanglrobriel.livejournal.com]

And heterosexual practices never cause injury or death? That's funny. The thing about the whole "ooh gay sex is dangerous, unhealthy and can keeeel you" crowd is that when you ask them to quantify what - exactly - constitutes gay sex, they can't really tell you, because there isn't any such thing. Heterosexual people engage in buggery, oral sex, fisting, water sports, leather sex, BDSM...there's really nothing we do that straight people don't do also. But somehow we're worse off for doing it, medically. Hrrunh? How's that work?
Childbirth ain't no walk in a field of flowers and it's got some far reaching life considerations as well. Women die in childbirth. Children die in childbirth. Gay sex never leads to childbirth, so therefore gay sex is just safer and better for everyone, and should be nationally mandated as the official type of intercourse of the United States. *laugh*

[loopback.livejournal.com]

women aren't technically human beings though. Think of them as the genetic equivalent of one of those breadmakers. "Put your semen in it, go to bed, and wake up tomorrow morning to the smell of fresh baked baby!"

[banner.livejournal.com]

A warning about the WFI website: It tries to install spyware on your system.

Nice people, huh?

[solarbird]

It's like a CLOWN CAR full of DICKHEADS!

[firni.livejournal.com]

Clown car full of NAZI dickheads.

[banner.livejournal.com]

What pisses me off even more was how fast LJ was to bow down to the demands of these people, even though they had no legal grounds to stand on. Then again, this is the same company that went into a partnership with the KGB last year to 'help' it's Russian customers.

Why are people in SF so fucking stupid?

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

SF? Science Fiction? San Francisco? I don't think either of those SFs have anything to do with the venality of LJ's corporate owners. Similarly, the fact that Microsoft (along with Google and Yahoo) has supported internet censorship in China and elsewhere is not an indictment of the Pacific Northwest. It's just people putting profits over principle, no matter where they live.

[banner.livejournal.com]

That's were they live, San Franciso. And the people there are the biggest disconnected from reality moron's you'll ever see. Next time you go there, take a deep breath, that smell you smell? It's not supposed to smell like that. SF is a hole, and even smells like one. I used to love going there, now I drive around it.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

You're really generalizing. There are idiots everywhere, and of the people I know in San Francisco there are no more idiots than there are here or anywhere else. In my view, it's a lovely city with advantages and disadvantages like anywhere, and in general I admire its political and social outlook, but that view doesn't lead me to generalizing about how awesome people are there. They're not. They're just people, just like anywhere.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually all that concerned about a "those people" comment by John Edwards back in 1998 when he was running for the Senate in North Carolina. What's important is not his personal homophobia, which seems real enough even though it's probably moderated over 9 years, but what policies he will pursue as president. He seems to be in line with most of the Democrats, who demagogue against marriage equality but otherwise have a much better record on civil rights for gay people than any of the Republicans.

Or, to take a quote (http://johnedwards.com/news/press-releases/20070426-nh-civil-unions/index.html) of his that's just over a month old:

(April 26, 2007) "Today, Gov. Lynch and the state of New Hampshire showed us that the idea of America -- fairness, justice and equal opportunity -- can become a reality when we have the courage to stand up for what is right. New Hampshire's decision to recognize civil unions and grant gay and lesbian couples the same rights granted to heterosexual married couples is an important step in the fight for justice. This is an issue of fundamental fairness, and by passing this law, New Hampshire's leaders chose fairness over discrimination."

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

In re. the creationist museum, please don't call these people Kentuckians. They aren't from here, and they embarrass us. The location - actually near the Kentucky-Ohio border - was chosen because Big Bone Lick park is nearby. Creationists have repeatedly targeted the park because it promotes the discovery of mammoth bones older than the creationists say the Earth is.

Most folks in Kentucky who are even aware of the museum are hoping it will quietly and quickly fade away.

[risu.livejournal.com]

Not that it's terribly relevant, but on the no-periods pill, I found

http://thewelltimedperiod.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-offer-marketing-advice-to-wyeth-via.html

insightful.

If that's correct, it's not a fewer-periods pill; it's a pill that doesn't artificially *add* a monthly bleed to visually simulate a period.