According to the Boy Scouts of America, you can’t camp in the woods with their little troop if you’re gay, agnostic or an atheist. That was kosher 20 years ago, but now that these groups are “out of the closet”, the BSA is starting to look like the bigoted small minded institution it really is. The Los Angeles Police Department, which had a program with the group since 1962 to help encourage kids to explore policing as a career, have disassociated themselves from the organization, saying that the values of tolerance and acceptance are too important to simply ignore.

The LAPD will now be designing their own program that won’t discriminate based on sexual orientation or religious belief. It helps that the police commissioner is openly gay himself (it’s LA people), and I hope the move prompts other government organizations to drop them like a bad habit. Don’t forget that the BSA gets to use public funds and government property despite failing to meet basic requirements of civility and good citizenship. It’s time for the organization to change; if they don’t, they may find themselves on the wrong side of history. Good for the LAPD for standing up for the little guys; it almost makes me like the police for once (I said almost).

I’m going to make no bones about this; if you find homosexuality repulsive, wrong, unnatural, weird, disgusting, freakish or sinful, you are a bigot. Now, the good news is all of us are a little bigoted in a bunch of usually unconscious ways, so you’re not alone. In all honesty, before my buddy Jeff came out of the closet, I have to admit to having been a bit of a bigot myself. As is often the case with us stubborn apes, it takes someone you care about to experience something in order for you to empathize with their struggle. I felt that after his coming out, it was time to do a little self auditing. Once I got over how awkward it was to admit some of my homophobic attitudes, the rest was actually kind of easy.

So imagine how impossible it must be for this fucking guy to realize just what a piece of shit human being he really is: Terry L. Brown is the proud owner of a website called “Whispers of the Spirit” (you’re kind of revealing your cards here, sport), and he’s written a deliciously bigoted article*  that I think is worth a look, if not to ponder the merit of our ancestors bothering to breed at all.

The whole thing revolves around Lesson 9, an initiative by the State of California to include a 45 minute lesson once a year designed to stop anti-gay bullying. More specifically, some narrow minded parents were fighting for their right to pull their kids out of health education classes (it’s actually pretty fucked up that they can already do that), but now a judge ruled that this lesson isn’t a health class. Now parents can’t say no, and they are freaking the fuck out. Meanwhile, guys like Terry are making sure everyone believes this whole catastrophe is government indoctrination.

It’s funny the use of that word, indoctrination, don’t you think? I mean, it’s fine when they do it to impressionable kids (usually scaring the shit out of them in the process), but the minute you try and teach something as basic as biology or civil rights they get all uppity, and basically accuse you of the worst offense imaginable: being just like them.

Terry and his ilk NEED homosexuality to be a lifestyle choice; the logic of their belief system is mired in Bronze Age views of sexual appropriateness (with their vaunted appreciation for monogamy being added as a new component), and there is no room for modern ethics. People like Terry frame their arguments indirectly, arguing for something rather than against it. So, he fights FOR his perceived liberties rather than AGAINST the liberties of others. Makes it pretty easy for some to justify their own intolerant behavior by believing in some grander goal, even if they are chasing windmills.

I’m sick of the way guys like Terry mask their obvious bigotry under the guise of individual freedom. Lesson 9 is like any other government program you’ve ever experienced as a child; long, tedious, and of zero consequence. The only thing of note is how paranoid parents are that their children won’t share the same prejudice they do. Truth is, like most children, they will reject the values you have that no longer fit with accepted norms (homosexuality is now one of these norms we understand very well now). Welcome to the future, morons.

* (the article has since been take down)

Will Phillips is officially the coolest kid in the world. A few weeks ago, he refused to take the Pledge of Allegiance at his school so long as gays are treated as second class citizens. At first he got in big trouble (prompting the principle to take disciplinary action), but since no one can be forced to recite it (yet), Will isn’t in any trouble, although school officials have refused to apologize to him (man, how embarrassing is it when an 11 year old is the most mature person in the room?).

Poor Will has been at the butt end of anti-gay slurs, but he appears undeterred in his quest for justice. Man, when I was a kid all I cared about was candy and video games; I wish I had bothered to take a bit more of an active interest in the world. You know, so long as there are good people like Will around, there’s definitely lots of hope for the future.

So what did you fucking accomplish today?

Can you think of any reason why one human being should attack another? Perhaps if your own safety is threatened, or if you need to protect your loved ones. I find there are very few valid reasons for one person to hurt another, but I must be in the minority. Take this douche, Robert Bellamy Jr, who along with accomplices assaulted and robbed  two men dressed in woman’s clothing, telling police that “God made me hate gays”.

Bellamy and his troop stalked the victims around town, harassing them verbally and physically, all the while yelling anti-gay slurs. The assailants spotted the victims again a short time later, and decided to escalate to physical violence, stealing their wallets in the process for a total haul of 7$ (here’s a tip: to avoid long jail sentences, it’s usually a good idea not to rob the people you beat up).

Police have said the sexual orientation of the victims was irrelevant and stated Bellamy was going to be charged with a hate crime. You see, the attack actually happened on Halloween, so there’s no reason to believe the victims were in fact gay. Maybe they were going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show or something. Who knows?

I have to wonder how Jr’s perception of homosexuality might be changed a little bit when he gets sent to the slammer and his sweet virgin ass starts being traded around for a pack of cigarettes. Good luck in prison, fuckface.

Before my buddy Jeff came out of the closet, he was a homophobe. I never really understood why, but later he explained to me that it had to do with his secret loathing of himself because of his sexual attraction to other men. I’ve never had to deal with such a powerful internal conflict, but when I sat down and really thought about it, it made perfect sense. This kind of phenomenon is well known in the gay community; in fact, they see extreme homophobia as being one of the first signs that someone is secretly in the closet. It’s called “Internalized Homophobia“.

With that in mind, here’s my candidate for closeted homosexual of the month: Steven L. Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church. Steven went on a bit of a tirade against gays recently, and apart from saying homosexuals should be executed for the crime of sodomy (he seems unaware that a significant portion of gay men actually don’t like anal sex), he also believes their sin is spreading like wildfire. I’ll let him tell you how he really feels about the whole thing:

You want to know who the biggest hypocrite in the world is? The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers and not for homosexuals.

He also apparently feels that gay men are multiplying:

How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they’re multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there’s more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They’re reproducing right? No, here’s a biology lesson: they’re not reproducers, they’re recruiters! And you know who they’re after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That’s who they’re after. You drop them off at some daycare, you drop them off at some school somewhere, you don’t know where they’re at. I’ll tell you where they’re at: they’re being recruited by the sodomites. They’re being molested by the sodomites. I can tell you so many stories about people that I know being molested and recruited by the sodomites.

And here I thought kids were usually just going to school to learn, but Steven believes that gay men are raping and molesting children, who in turn switch over to the other side. Well, if that was true, then every women who’s ever been raped would become a rapist herself, but I guess that doesn’t fit his specific predjudice at all.

They recruit through rape. They recruit through molestation. They recruit through violation. They are infecting our society. They are spreading their disease. It’s not a physical disease, it’s a sin disease, it’s a wicked, filthy sin disease and it’s spreading on a rampage. Can’t you see that it’s spreading on a rampage? I mean, can you not see that? Can you not see that it’s just exploding in growth? Why? Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting ‘em.

Now I hate to make pronunciations on people I know very little, but after listening to the recording this was actually transcribed from, I can’t help but feel he’s not showing all his cards. Steven, I know that you think they are trying to recruit you, but your physical attraction to men isn’t because of anything they do (unless they are wearing hot pants I suppose) or a test of faith from God. It’s just your biology, so go out there and go enjoy your new life as a gay man. I’m sure you’ll fucking LOVE it.

OK, I’m paraphrasing here, but the APA concluded yesterday that there is no evidence therapies meant to change someone’s sexual orientation are effective or healthy. In fact, their findings showed lasting changes were unlikely, and asked mental health practitioners to stop suggesting this kind of therapy.

The article seems to tap dance around the real reason why these types of therapies exist: Religious conservatives feel homosexuality is a travesty, and a closer relationship with Jesus will somehow make gay men straight. The ‘therapies’ they’ve devised aren’t based on any real scientific understanding, but rather on the spurious reasoning that sexual orientation is a choice rather than an orientation. The APA suggests that people remain ‘creative’ when dealing with this issue, but they seem to ignore the elephant in the room: so long as religious bigots continue to crusade against homosexuality, these types of bullshit therapies won’t go away.

Is this surprising to anyone with half a brain? If you’re heterosexual, how likely is it that a therapy session would convince you to start finding the same sex attractive? In a universe with no God, where human evolution is the product of mutation and change, why is it so surprising that some humans might be born feeling attraction to the same sex? We predictably see this type of behavior in nature (gay penguins anyone?). Hey Christians, stop trying to convert gays and let them get back to giving straight people makeovers or something. That’s what they all do, right?

The issue of homosexuality is the biggest threat to the stability of the Church of England, with many groups within the church actively campaigning against ‘active’ gays (I assume by active they mean having gay sex) in the community according to this BBCNews article.

Over the years, the Church of England has become increasingly liberal, and their view on homosexuality has softened quite a bit. Obviously, not everyone is too happy about that, like Dr. Nazir-Ali, who wants the traditional teachings of the Bible to be upheld.

People who depart from this don’t share the same faith. They are acting in a way that is not normative according to what God has revealed in the Bible.

The Bible’s teaching shows that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the way to express our sexual nature.

We welcome homosexuals, we don’t want to exclude people, but we want them to repent and be changed.

I hate when these assholes pretend they are welcoming and inviting, when in reality they are close minded and bigoted. As far as they are concerned, every gay man and woman should be fighting their sexual desires, regardless of the psychological damage that does.

A split looks like it’s inevitable, anyways. I doubt the liberal attitudes of the Church of England will stop. The UK is a very progressive country, and the Church has tried valiantly to keep up with the times. That a few old school preachers and parishioners despise this should surprise no one. The nature of religion is divisive, and I’m positive we’ll soon see to what degree very soon.