This is why I want less and less to do with organized religion. Or maybe with evil people dressed in a religion's cloak

After watching this short video I am just astonished with this young man, that he is still alive, and, I hope, in good health. What he had to go through in the name of religion, in the name of hatred, bigotry and false sense of righteousness is aggrevating. And where is law? How come no one reacted when a child was abused in such terrible way? Multiple times "fell of the stairs" and no one at the hospital informed the police or child services? A child kicked out from home and the parents are not forced to take care of him? Isn't there a requirement on parents to provide basic protection till the child is 18? All of it is so sickening... What mother will say to a gay child "change and I will love you again"???

I wish this boy all good, I hoped he found a place among some good, loving people, who respect and accept him just the way he is.

no homo

I wasn't really familiar with this term at all. I don't listen to rap, hip-hop and don't watch tv... I am not familiar with slang, so really had no chance to know how widely it is spread. Recently I had a chance to see parodies and stand-ups making fun of them, and it really bothers me. It is scary a person can't express any kind of feelings, admiration, art-relating comment, anything non gender-profiled without adding "no homo", I am terrified of the message it sends out. I can't imagine to be a gay kid with people using this around you, your friends, your music idols, and so on.


Based on the idea of the author of this blog: I am not racist, but..., whose idea was simple and brilliant - search among the public facebook status entries for this and similar variations of the phrase. It's quite depressing to read it, but also eye opening.
I did something similar, using the phrase "no homo". Here are examples of what I found:

[Ryan]: Dude I wish I could sing like Michael Buble haha (no homo) 

[Juancho]: My neck is super sore(No homo)        (- that one only tells what kind of vigilant mind people have... b/c what's wrong with having a sore neck? in his mind must be "homo" red flag...) 

[Sydney]: Melanie fixed my phone again!!!! She got it where I can touch it now!!!!! I luvvers u melanie!!!! :) (no homo) haa lol :) 

[Jonathan]: Best Moments Of AI .... Missed this guy so much...was such a beast in basketball (no homo) 

[Kristen]: hacked by Mellbobb:) hahaha I love you Cruton (no homo) ahahahahahahaha...ha.........rubber duckies 

[Mike]: Thanks to the family who ALWAYS has my back, Thanks to the friends who commute 2 hours both ways because I'm feeling down, Thanks to my girl who always tells me things will be OK, And thanks to everyone who loves, and accepts me for me. It's hard to be negative with so many positives in my life... LOVE YOU ALL (No homo).   (- this guy already mentioned his got his "girl", but still has to add "no homo". what's wrong with expressing love and gratitude to family and friends?) 

[Anthony]:I LOVEE YOU FACEBOOK....(NO HOMO)     (- does it mean Facebook is a ... man? or is that some random dude's nickname?)   

[Angelo]: Drew I miss The days going to buffalo wild wings to watch the pens play and me wearing that caps shit... Fun times miss u bro and love u (no homo)

[Siyabonga]: i love yall 2 bits .nyt nd sweet dreams .p.s if u a dude no homo! 

 [Coleen]: Im in love with Amy Lee!! (No homo) ♥

[Mario]: I use music to express how im feeling (no homo) 

[Ian]: I have the best friends in the world. They gave me a surprise birthday party, a house full of balloons, a red, white, and blue cake covered in little babies, a video game, pistachios, and some "juice". I love them. No homo. 

[Wayne]: The sweet things i say are because i'm a sweet person.. No homo.

[Valery]: Shout out to CapriSun Pouches...you're never too old for CapriSun..and you can't be too gangsta for CapriSun..its like blowing bubbles..idc how gangsta you are..bubble blowing will always be exciting..oh..no homo 

[Michael]: Yo its always one bird dude its 7 of us me and my friends rite 6 of us talking about buying a whole lot of liquor and meat(no homo) for a bbq y the 7th friend said he got da frank buns. Smfh    (- I don't know what's on this guy's mind, but it looks like "buying meat" = "mad buttsex" in his world... ) 

[Daysha]: Inbox me colors and i will tell yhu how i feel bout ,yhu no homo:

I've got the power!

According to the lady I spoke with briefly while waiting for a bus, I caused the tornadoes in Oklahoma. How? Somehow it was clear to her, that tornadoes are direct sign of God being angry with what humans are doing down here.  The one thing she called out that humans are doing wrong? Men are marrying men, women are marrying women. Not criminals, drug users, wife beaters... no, it's the gays who have the nerve to live happily in monogamous relationships.

I didn't response to her. Should I have done something? I don't know. Maybe it was cowardice, maybe the dislike for confrontation and causing troubles. I was stunned, I was hurt, but even more I was shocked with her logic. I just can't understand how people can believe in such a low, bitter, vengeful god. God, who is fine with killing innocent people in Oklahoma (or Japan) because there are two gays living happily in NY? I understand that belief doesn't have to be rational... But does it have to go so completely against logic, ethics or common sense? Why would anyone want to belief in such a god?

visiting old corners

I am not really sure why, but I decided to go back to an old forum I used to be very active in. It's a Polish-Jewish discussion place. I started there over ten years ago, and became good friends with a few people there. One of them is still my best friend. There is some nostalgia in me going back .. I have no idea what I want to accomplish or get.

I knew that getting on a thread on homosexuality in the Torah would be a bad idea. But I had no idea how bad... The comments on how someone is "disgusted" with homosexuals, how they should be banned from adoptions, comparing to pedophilia (yep)... all was there. Even the old argument of "the heterosexuals don't show off with their orientation, why the gays have to". Idiocy. I don't know what I wanted to achieve discussing someone's very strict answer on absolute prohibition of homosexuality in the Torah... nothing works. I was basically told to choose another religion if I don't like that Judaism prohibits it. Progressive Jews were made fun of, and suggested they are not real Jews.

What a catastrophe. I know I am not going back to Poland, for many reasons. But one of the main ones is, that I refuse to live in the closet. I lived enough years with a mask on, lying to myself, others, pretending and trying to fit in. I want to be open at work, to family and friends. I don't want anyone judging my potential ability to be a mother based on whom I love.

To be clear - there were some voices trying to stand for gays... but even these brought an argument, that if they gays could choose they would prefer being straight (as part of an argument that it's not gays' fault, it's biological).

So sad. I guess that's similar to some more right-wing/evangelical places here. Maybe it's good, so I can stop having silly ideas of finding job in Omaha or Louisiana.

All this negativity of the past days, job search, fear, stress, headaches and anxiety get to me. I was really down today, even the kids were noticing. It's hard to keep up.

the most recent idea: get to graduate program with scholarship or something, to keep visa. I have good friends helping me, it's really great.

Food for atheist thought

I wish I had that strength and that much of confidence as he has. His words are powerful, his intelligence and thought really inspiring.
I do like my tradition, civilization, culture... but if I had to choose between a world which would be devoid of any religion, and so having no culture with religious origin and enjoying my heritage with complex and great traditions, I am choosing the first option any time. There are great benefits, especially in arts and elements of culture and philosophy... but the negative outcomes overweight the good things.

I've always been interested in the idea of religion, various ways of building up the belief system, rituals, philosophy, complicated esoteric systems. But it is absolutely disgusting what humans are ready to do in the name of it.







I have just read this post and because it does relate that what I mentioned here, although with a particular focus, I post the link to it.
I agree that Jews and Christians who don't take at least partial guilt for the horrible epidemic of gay suicides, live in denial. How dare their preach that gays are beast and sinners, and then go on and say they have nothing to do with it? Judeo-Christianity is the base of this society. And the extreme gay hating that's done by evangelicals and other fundamentalist, as well as many moderates, is the smoking gun.

birthers are toxic.

I was quite not ready for the answer I received from one of my students when I asked why President Obama could be considered an "outsider" (I was comparing him to the Biblical Moses): "he is not one of us". When I asked to define "us", he said: "Americans", when I started to contradict that that's bullshit and he is an American and that it is all a lie, he started to get all confused talking about "I've read somewhere..." and so on. Of course what I meant was that he spent some years in Indonesia and had untypical upbringing, bridging different ethnicities and race lines, being able to have bot an insider, and an outsider point of view. (Other problem being that the kids knew hardly anything and I, the non-citizen, had to tell them the details. but somehow the "born not in the US" sticks.)
I guess after his yesterday's "joke" gesture making squinted eyes when we talked about ancient Asiatics, should have prepared me for today's bomb. Or his homophobic comments some weeks ago how all gays are disgusting because they shave legs, but lesbians are ok (I added "because they are hot"?).

I had a talk with him after the homophobic talk on sensitivity and homophobia and that I, as a lesbian, felt extremely uncomfortable with his comments. He took it in pretty well.
I also very strongly reacted to his "squinting" gesture, telling him that I wold not accept this kind of racist jokes. He was surprised that it was racist.

Today I also tried to push some point across, about not trusting all he reads/hears, to be critical, to not listen in to idiots. But I have no idea how well it would work.

The good thing? He's a 9th grader, and he's in a very good school with strong emphasis on social justice, human dignity and respect. He may still grow up to be a decent human being.

Another student of mine told me she wants to join "Purple Day" in remembrance of the gay youth suicide with our school. i haven't heard about it before... I told her how to organize it, where to begin and whom to contact.

So yeah, there are the terrifying examples of hurtful ignorance, but also very hopeful, sensitive and open minded youth. I hope the latter will grow.

braiding the nooses

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[image from: QZAP]

I might not agree 100% with each statement (or not fully), but something needs to be done. We can't keep on losing children that way! No one should go through such hell because of gender expression, sexual orientation, gender identification, personality traits or any other thing that makes us individual humans.

I just watched Ellen's message about the suicides. Well said, strong message. I hope more messages like that will reach main stream media.

Brutal awakening

Just got up and started reading news while drinking my morning coffee. Just on CNN.com there are three different stories about kids or young adults victimized for being gay. There is no progress, nothing is finished and well till we reach the time when no one is bullied for being gay, lesbian, bi or trans. When no kid is forced to censor himself or herself in their gender expression, their choices of clothing, haircuts or music.
I hope the parents of the bullies feel guilty and ashamed instead of denying their children doing anything wrong.
I am glad that in the case of the college student (the one who killed himself after his roommate secretly recorded his intimate time with another man) are charged and face up to 5 years in jail. If people can't figure out that this kind of behavior is morally wrong, maybe at least the risk of serious penalty will keep them from hurting the other.

Here's Anderson's interview with parents of Asher, a boy who shot himself after almost two years of being bullied. According to the parents, the boy was made fun of for being smaller, not wearing fashionable clothes or not owning expensive gadgets, and also for being gay. The boy came out to his parents in the morning of the day he killed himself. The school denied knowing anything, even though there are other parents who also were alarmed by their children being bullied and informed the school about problems.

Material about the death of Rutgers student, who committed a suicide after his roommate recorded and posted on  the internet his sexual encounter with a man. These were adults. What level of moral lobotomy needs to be achieved in order to do such thing? How anyone could thing it was ever ok? How could anyone find it entertaining? It's beyond my ability to understand. And I think I am glad it is.

In this story thanks gods there is no death. But the fact that constant gay bashing and verbal attacks on someone's sexual orientation are called "freedom of speech" are as wrong. I am glad that the victim of this vicious attacks is a stronger and older individual, who was able to stand up to these attacks. But no-one's strength, skin thickness or sensitivity should be ever tried in such a way.

the daily dose of privilege, racism and homophobia.

Oh, the putrid smell of white, rich privilege...
I got late to catch it in other places, but Resist Racism talks about a blog entry of a law professor who is "just getting by" on his and his wife's $250k combined salary. Resist has both link to google cache and copy of it on his blog. 


This just shows what levels of insensitivity, lack of understanding and absence self-criticism the rich have. They see having big expensive house, two cars, cable, private schools and art classes as basic life necessities. Well, it's not exactly "basic" nor "necessity". What's wrong with living in rented apartment? What's wrong with a public school? What about cutting down on cable? Mowing your own lawn? He even adds their transfers to retirement funds as "expenses". Well, unfortunately in this country that still counts as luxury. Many people know how important that is but can do nothing. They don't even imagine having retirement savings and assume they will work till they die. 


But it gets even better. It looks like many people didn't like this professor's entry... he got all hurt and offended with all these bullies. But that's not the worse... Again thanks to Resist Racism I read his response to "attacks":

The electronic lynch mob that has attacked and harassed me — you should see the emails sent to me personally! — has made my family feel threatened and insecure  …  To those with pitchforks trying to attack me instead of my message, I feel sorry for you. You have caused untold damage to me personally. I may be wrong, even stupid, but I don’t think I deserved that.

I am joining author of the blog in his anger about this professor using such words. He has no right to compare people disagreeing with his snobbish, privileged opinions to lynching. And I have the same thoughts on people using words like "rape", "holocaust", "genocide" or 'discrimination" lightly in a very inappropriate situations. This trivializes their true meaning and cheapens the experiences of people for whom these are not just words but deepest wounds.


Go and read Resistance's commentary, it's really good. 


And because we shouldn't end on such optimistic note, new pearls of wisdom from Ann Coulter:

Marriage “is not a civil right – you’re not black,” Coulter said to nervous laughter. She went on to note that gays are among the wealthiest demographic groups in the country. 

“Blacks must be looking at the gays saying, ‘Why can’t we be oppressed like that?’”

...the gays "ought to start being antiabortion because "once they find the gay gene, guess who's getting aborted" 

[from: GoodAsYou]


Wait a sec... does it mean she believes being gay is genetic? So it's not because the schools talk about condoms, girls wear pants and boys are molested by evil priests homos?
Oh, and there are gay African-American, by the way.
I seriously don't know what's wrong with this woman. There is hardly a word that could be used to call her, everything seems not strong enough. 
I've had enough, time to go sleep. 

Gay adoption success!

At least some good news in the field - two men won striking down Florida's law according to which gay couples could foster but not adopt children. Step by step to normalcy.

How could anyone say that these two would not be good parents?

"They were completely traumatized for a while," Gill recalled. "At first the only way I could get [the 4-year-old] to interact was when he played with the dog."The child was so accustomed to taking care of the baby that he would grab the bottle out of Gill's hand and feed his brother. When the bottle was two-thirds empty, the 4-year-old would refill it, knowing exactly how much milk to pour."He would insist on holding his brother and burping him," said Gill.

When the baby dirtied his diaper, the 4-year-old came to Gill with a Pamper in his hand. "He knew his job. This is what he did. He had to be the parent to this baby," Gill said. "But, I explained to him, 'You get to play, you get to be the child. You don't have to take care of your brother.'"

That greatly upset the 4-year-old and it took a long for him to learn how to be a kid, Gill said. As a compromise, the boy -- now 8 -- has a full-time caretaker job, to give the dog its food and water.

And I especially can't get the "foster yes, adoption no" idea. If gays are good enough to take care of the unwanted, help them for a few years and then give them away to a different (hetero) family, it means they are thought of as not such a bad influence or evil household if they are given kids for a period of few years, right? But somehow stability, creating full family in the eyes of the law, giving the kids the opportunity to feel they are not in a temporary place to be traumatized again by moving to strangers, no, that's not good?

I hope they won't appeal, it's good the governor is happy with the ruling.

The need of solid backbone in politics

Among the common news of politicians playing to whatever they think is the mood of voters at the moment, the information that Mary McAleese, Irish President, refused to participate in NY St.Patric parade is very refreshing. What was the cause of her refusal? Gay rights. She opposes the fact that very often gay groups are forbidden from participating in St.Patric's Parade. She decided that she would not participate in something that is against her values and what she represents as Irish President. I wish more politicians had the guts to stand up for what they truly believe in, no matter what the constituent says.

Of course we could always say that she is playing to Irish voters' fiddles... but if that's the case, I am ok with that :) And still, she would got a nice boost by participating in the NY parade, so she's paying a price.

More in Advocate.com.

All that is especially uplifting after reading the story about a baker who refused to prepare rainbow cup cakes for National Coming Out Day, b/c he was afraid that the rainbow is contagious and would influence his daughters assumed heterosexuality. If he is so afraid of his daughters well being maybe he should stop feeding them cup cakes, that's first.