Box Turtle Bulletin

Marriage equality comes to straightsville

Is there a city on the planet that screams “drunk heterosexual American college student” louder than Cancun? But the (admittedly beautiful) Mexican party city is now seeking to expand its appeal. So, due to a quirk in the law, Cancun and its neighbors in Quintana Roo County will begin offering same-sex marriages. (Foxipoo)

Novelo said that this “is something very positive. Besides the social part there are many economic benefits because the gay community generates between 45 and 60 percent more income on top of conventional tourism.”

She said gay and lesbian marriages are possible in Quintana Roo, “thanks to a legal gap in the Civil Code,” which only makes mention of “people interested in getting married,” without specifying their gender.

However, this was more of an accidental tourist attraction. At first Cancun officials just assumed that the law did not allow for same sex marriage. (Latin American Herald)

“We were more than two months going through the procedures in different Quintana Roo Civil Registry Offices – in Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Chetumal and elsewhere – and none would allow us to register,” she said.

According to Novelo, in none of those cities would authorities allow the couples to present their legal arguments.

But in Kantunilkin, Judge Maria Rosalia Balam Caamal and other members of the Civil Registry Office decided to give them the chance.

After an initial refusal, and after several days of analysis, “they finally told us that the marriage was possible and that they had no legal arguments to deny it,” she said.

Marriages conducted in states in which it is legal in Mexico are recognized throughout the whole country.

Joe King isn’t a sissy, he’s just a bigot

A cartoonist who is described in news reports as being “Christian” (though I think many Christian churches would find his “humor” to be unwelcome) has come up with a 2012 calendar that feels about 30 years out-of-date. Fag jokes don’t have the audience they once had, and even conservatives are no longer comfortable with “jokes” that feel mean-spirited and based solely in contempt. (WGAL)

Titled “I’m Not Gay, I’m Just A Sissy,” the calendar by Joe King has drawn staunch criticism for what many are calling homophobic humor and imagery, including one illustration which appears to poke fun at the HIV/AIDS crisis, the Huffington Post reported.

Another cartoon portrays Paul Revere on horseback shouting, “The sodomites are coming! The sodomites are coming!”

Take away the premise that gay people are, by definition, offensive and absurd, and there’s nothing comical left in King’s cartoons.

A number of gay sites reported that Amazon and Barnes and Noble carried the calendar and both companies received several complaints. Even GLAAD veered from their usual focus to object to the defamation that was occurring.

I fully support King’s right to be an ahole. And I support the right for distributors and stores to carry whatever bilious crap they want. But I don’t go where I know I’ll be offended, and I prefer not to shop at stores that profit from blatant anti-gay hate.

For what it’s worth, Barnes and Noble pulled the calendar from their website and noted that it never was available in stores. Amazon has yet to respond. (In a totally unrelated subject… I wonder whether B&N’s Nook or Amazon’s Kindle is interested in the gay market… just wondering)

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, December 29

John Addington Symonds (left) and Edward Carpenter (right)

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Letter from John Addington Symonds to Edward Carpenter: 1892. Symonds was an English poet and literary critic who, although married and a father, was an early advocate of male homosexuality (see Oct 5). Edward Carpenter was a poet, socialist philosopher, and an early gay advocate — and among the very few who lived openly as a gay man (see Aug 29) in Victorian England. In 1892, Symonds was beginning his collaboration with sexologist Havelock Ellis for Ellis’s first installment of his six-volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex, when Symonds wrote to Carpenter to discuss some of the topics he intended to cover. While Ellis intended to stick strictly to a psychological discussion on homosexuality (or Sexual Inversion, as it was called at the time), Symonds wanted to open the topics up to historical and ethical considerations:

It is a pity that we cannot write freely on the topic. But when we meet, I will communicate to you facts which prove beyond all doubt to my mind that the most beneficial results, as regards health and nervous energy, accrue from the seuxal relations between men: also, that when they are carried on with true affection, through a period of years, both comrades become united in a way which would be otherwise quite inexplicable.

The fact appears to me proved. The explanation of it I cannot give, & I do not expect it to be given yet. Sex has been unaccountably neglected. Its physiological & psychological relations even in the connection between man & woman are not understood. We have no theory which is worth anything upon the differentiation of the sexes, to begin with. In fact, a science of what is the central function of human beings remains to be sought.

This, I take it, is very much due to psychologists, assuming that sexual instincts follow the build of the sexual organs; & that when they do not, the phenomenon is criminal or morbid. In fact, it is due to science at this point being clogged with religious & legal presuppositions.

…My hope has always been that eventually a new chivalry, i.e.., a second elevated form of human love, will emerge & take its place for the service of mankind by the side of that other which was wrought out in the Middle Ages.

…How far away that dream seems! And yet I see in human nature stuff neglected, ever-present — pariah and outcast now — from which I am as certain as I live, such a chivalry could arise.

Whitman, in Calaumus, seems to strike the key-note. And though he repudiated (in a very notable letter to myself) the deductions which have logically to be drawn from Calamus, his work will remain infinitely helpful.

[From Chris White’s Nineteenth-Century Writings on Homosexuality: A Sourcebook, pp 92-94.]

Catholic Church Reaffirms Opposition to Homosexuality: 1975. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But on this date in 1975, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — think of it as the Vatican’s equivalent of the Justice Department (so to speak) — issued Persona Humana, addressing “certain questions concerning sexual ethics.” On the subject of homosexuality, the Congregation stated:

A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency comes from a false education, from a lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable; and homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable.

In regard to this second category of subjects, some people conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analogous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary life.

In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God. This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.

The same statement also reaffirmed the Church’s opposition to premarital sex, extramarital sex and masturbation (which is also branded “an intrinsically and seriously disordered act”).

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Billy Tipton: 1914. It wasn’t until his death in 1989 when it became widely known that the American jazz pianist, saxophonist and bandleader had actually been born a woman. Early in his career, Tipton performed as a man while continuing to present as a woman otherwise, but by the 1940s, he had transitioned his gender identity fully to male — except for when he went home to his family, where he became Dorothy again. He entered into at least three long-term heterosexual relationships, including a marriage (although it may have been a common law marriage) with stripper Kitty Kelly with whom Tipton adopted three sons. One son, William, remembered Billy as a good father who loved to go on Scout camping trips. It was William who would learn that his father had been born a woman, when he was looking on as paramedics tried to resuscitate him after collapsing with a hemorrhaging peptic ulcer.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Johnson runs as Libertarian

Evolved already.

As anticipated, Republican former governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson has reregistered as a Libertarian in order to seek that party’s nomination for president. (Foxipoo)

Gary Johnson has made it official. The Republican presidential candidate who got no respect has announced he will now seek the nomination of the Libertarian Party.

Johnson made the announcement Wednesday morning in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he served as the state’s Republican governor from 1995 to 2003.

“This was both a difficult decision – and an easy one,” Johnson said. “I have a lot of Republican history, and a lot of Republican supporters. But in the final analysis…I am a Libertarian – that is someone who is fiscally very conservative but holds freedom-based positions on the issues that govern our personal behavior.”

This is a very peculiar election season. A Libertarian candidate without an association with racism or state directors who are board members of a hate-group or touted support from dominionist extremists may find higher than expected support.

A Christian response to Cardinal George

A professor at the Chicago Theological Seminary has an unexpected response to Cardinal George’s wacky KKK comparisons. Well, it the seminary is affiliated with the United Church of Christ so it really isn’t all that unexpected. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite has invited the Cardinal to come experience the Pride Parade as her guest – because it would help him be a better Christian leader.

I would like to invite the cardinal because I have become an ally of the LGBTQ community and it has been an incredible spiritual and theological journey for me. I would like to share with him a small part of how important this journey can be for Christian leaders as well as parishioners.

I have learned so much from what a spirituality of truthfulness teaches, and how it can illumine a great deal about the Christian Gospel, as well as about theology, ethics, pastoral care, and worship. Over the years of teaching and learning with gay students, faculty, and staff colleagues, both at the seminary, around the nation and indeed around the world, I have gained from their courage in facing up to a world that is hostile to their very humanity, and challenging churches that claim they are not included in God’s love and care. Despite all the hurtful and harmful religious messages, many LGBT people nevertheless come to know God’s love and affirmation for exactly who they are.

The Cardinal may do well to listen to Thistlewaite, she’s no theological lightweight.

Woops, There It Goes

Phil Kayser's endorsement on Ron Paul's campaign website earlier today (above). That same page now (below) (Click to enlarge)

The press release from Ron Paul’s presidential campaign bragging about Christian Reconstrucitonist pastor Phil Kayser’s endorsement is gone. Poof! Just like that.  The Google Cache version is here. And for archival purposes, we’re keeping a copy of that announcement below. I wonder if the Paul Campaign is going to issue a statement, or if they’re going to try to sweep it under the rug just like they did with the newsletters? Anyone taking any bets?

Click here to see the original endorsement announcement

Watching Jamaica

There have been some interesting developments in Jamaica recently.

Institutionalized homophobia has died down a bit – or at least the press has fewer stories of mob murders or police cover-ups of homophobic violence. But as the elections are going into their final days, the sodomy law is becoming something of an issue. (USA Today)

But during a debate last week with Prime Minister Andrew Holness, opposition chief Portia Simpson Miller called for a review of the law. She argued that professional competence, not sexual orientation, will determine who is selected for a Cabinet post if her People’s National Party wins.

Since then, some top Labor candidates have made homophobic comments at political rallies, among them Cabinet minister Daryl Vaz, who said “God created Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve,” prompting applause and anti-gay slurs from his West Portland constituents.

Labor’s candidate for West Central St. James, Energy Minister Clive Mullings, asserted that easing up on laws against homosexuality would bring God’s wrath down on Jamaica, while West Kingston candidate, Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie, used an epithet at a rally while an anti-gay dancehall song played.

I’ll be watching the results of Thursday’s election to see if either party – currently neck and neck – is a clear winner.

There is another potential story to the uptick in homophobia, but I’m waiting on responses before discussing it further.

NOM runs anti-Ron Paul ad

While our community may be noting with discomfort the peculiar affiliations or view of a number of Ron Paul’s prominent supporters, that doesn’t mean that he is viewed favorably by those who dedicate themselves day in and day out to obsessing about Teh Ghey. It seems that Ron Paul is “a radical who would destroy traditional marriage in America.”

Whodathunkit? So pro-equality is Ron Paul that NOM has created an entire website for the purpose of “spotlighting Ron Paul’s unwillingness to defend marriage.”

But it seems that Ron Paul is not the only nefarious secret supporter of equality, Michele Bachmann has learned that Mitt Romney is pro-equality as well:

“Mitt Romney has defended gay marriage and even signed marriage licenses for same-sex couples and Ron Paul doesn’t believe the government should protect the institution of marriage,” Bachmann said. “I have a record of defending life, marriage and the family and I’ll protect them as president of the United States.”

But I just don’t think that Hatin’ on Teh Ghey is getting as much traction as it has in the past. There’s something about having real issues like a stagnant economy and high unemployment to make such issues seem as silly as they really are.

Cardinal George’s self-delusional narcissism

Have you heard of the Ku Klux Klan? They were that group best known for marching through cities in the forties in order to stifle Catholic worship. Or so Cardinal George seems to think.

In defending his bizarre comparison between the Klan and gay people, George issued the following statement:

The Chicago Gay Pride Parade has been organized and attended for many years without interfering with the worship of God in a Catholic church. When the 2012 Parade organizers announced a time and route change this year, it was apparent that the Parade would interfere with divine worship in a Catholic parish on the new route. When the pastor’s request for reconsideration of the plans was ignored, the organizers invited an obvious comparison to other groups who have historically attempted to stifle the religious freedom of the Catholic Church. One such organization is the Ku Klux Klan which, well into the 1940’s, paraded through American cities not only to interfere with Catholic worship but also to demonstrate that Catholics stand outside of the American consensus. It is not a precedent anyone should want to emulate.

It is terribly wrong and sinful that gays and lesbians have been harassed and subjected to psychological and even physical harm. These tragedies can be addressed, however, without disturbing the organized and orderly public worship of God in a country that claims to be free. I am grateful that all parties concerned resolved this problem by moving the Parade’s start time so as not to conflict with the celebration of Mass that Sunday.

Cardinal George is like a child in his thinking. He is only capable of seeing the world through the prism of his own immediate wants. And Cardinal George believes that as he is a child of God, his Father is very important and very powerful and therefore the Cardinal is entitled to get what he wants. When and how he wants it.

Cardinal George might be more compelling if he were not the spiritual equivalent of Veruca Salt.

Ron Paul’s Easy Appeal Among Reconstructionists

Warren Throckmorton seems to have found what may be the key to Ron Paul’s support among Christian Reconstructionists while also being spurned by Dominionists:

But back to (New Apostolic Reformation dominionists) vs. Christian reconstructionists; the focus of control is different. The NAR folks want to rule America as a Christian nation from the seat of centralized power in Washington DC. The Christian reconstructionists want to deconstruct central government in favor of state or local control of law. Bachmann and Perry promise to govern biblically and impose their view of Christian America on the nation. Paul promises to dismantle the federal government in favor of the states.

In fact, the Christian reconstructionists are afraid of the NAR dominionists. Recontructionist Joel McDurmon wants biblical law in place but he thinks the NAR approach is a dangerous power grab.

It’s notable that the most prominent pastor in Iowa to endorse Ron Paul (an endorsement featured on Paul’s web site) is Rev. Phil Kayser, who has deep reconstructionist (also known as theonomist) ties. At Biblical Blueprints, a reconstrucitonist web site, Kaiser posted a book (PDF: 4.1MB/60 pages) in which he justifies the death penalty for homosexuality:

(page 24): I should think that theonomists would be happy with this understanding of Biblical capital crimes since it is the Bible and the Bible alone that determines ethics.  But I would think that those who are concerned about how Biblical penology would apply in a pagan society and how it would dovetail with evangelism would be happy because Biblical penology beautifully dovetails with God’s program of the  Great Commission. There is no tension between Biblical law and the Great Commission. For example, in a society that was being converted, homosexuals could continue to be converted as they were in the church of Corinth. Even after a society implemented Biblical law and made homosexuality a crime, there are many checks and balances that would be in place. (See Appendix A page  40 for specifics.) The civil government could not round them up. Only those who were prosecuted by citizens could be punished, and the punishment could take a number of forms, including death. This would have a tendency of driving homosexuals back into their closets.

I think I have demonstrated how even capital punishment can be restorative.  Other aspects of penology such as restitution, indentured servitude, etc. are certainly restorative.

I should think that those who accuse Biblicists of a theology that would cause a holocaust should be happy since we advocate standing law, not the Herem principle, and since standing law could be implemented even in a society like ours without the need for massive bloodshed. After a few speedy executions of non-repentant criminals, others would think twice before despising God’s law.

Paul opposes Lawrence v. Texas because he thinks it infringes on states rights. Kayser likes the idea of states having the right to kill homosexuals, which neatly completes the circle to his support for Paul.

Later in the book, Kayser defends his support for capital punishment for gay people against the objection that his theonomist proposals would “lead to a bloodbath”:

(page 38): Objection 13 – “This would lead to a blood bath if we were to implement that law today because almost our entire nation is implicated in capital crimes.”

This objection is a mixture of pragmatism (we can’t do it) and emotional appeal (it would lead to a blood bath). But neither argument changes God’s definition of justice. Difficulty in implementing Biblical law does not make non-Biblical penology just. But as we have seen, while many homosexuals would be executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative.

What’s a few dead homosexuals in the greater scheme of things? And this is the man of whose endorsement Paul’s web site now brags. Along with Paul’s praise of the voter recall effort against state Supreme Court judges who ruled in favor of marriage equality, his opposition to Lawrence v. Texas, and the man who Paul selected to lead his Iowa campaign, suddenly those newsletters appear neither anachronistic nor anomalous. Ron Paul supporters have to ask themselves a really hard question: With his active courting of extremists like these, what kind of people do they think Paul will select for his administration?

Ron Paul touts endorsement by pastor who wants you dead. Literally.

Ron Paul is touting the endorsement of “Eminent Pastor Rev. Phil Kayser, Ph.D.”. Kayser is the pastor of Dominion Covenant Church in Omaha, Nebraska and, as might be deduced from the church’s name, Kayser is a dominionist. But as Dr. Warren Throckmorton reports, Kayser is extremist even for dominionists. The eminent pastor reverend doctor Phil Kayser wants to rule the world.

Our church will not rest or be satisfied (Is. 62:6-7) until all human authority submits to Christ (Matt. 28:18), all nations are discipled (Matt. 28:19), all Scripture is followed (Matt. 28:20a) and all of Christ’s presence and resources are claimed (Matt. 28:20b). Anything less than an expectation of total victory for King Jesus in history (1 Cor. 15:24-28) does not do justice to the all encompassing mandate of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20).

Oh, and by “all Scripture is followed”, the eminent pastor reverend doctor veers from the usual and customary Christian teaching. The eminent pastor reverend doctor means the following:

But notice how Paul ties this in with his overarching theme of natural knowledge. It is not just the sinfulness of homosexuality that is known, but also the justice of the death penalty for homosexuality. In verse 32 Paul says, “Who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” The reason men have an innate sense of justice is because God’s law reflects not only His holiness but also His justice and goodness (Romans 7:12). Romans 13 says that magistrates are subject to all three. They must know what is sin and what is good, and they must apply justice in condemning the one and protecting the other. All of that, Romans 1-2 says is in man’s heart.

Now, I personally don’t believe that executing gays is intuitive or natural or written right there in man’s heart. So I personally don’t find this to be an endorsement that compels me to support Ron Paul. But if you are a big supporter or the eminent pastor reverend doctor Phil Kayser, then you will probably also find that supporting Ron Paul is written in your heart. With a sharpie.

UPDATE: It seems that someone in Ron Paul’s campaign finally noticed what it was that Phil Kayser actually believes and teaches. The campaign website no longer proudly announced Kayser’s endorsement.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, December 28

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Closeted Anti-Gay Activist Dies of AIDS: 1986. Terry Dolan, who helped to found the National Conservative Political Action Committee, was pretty well known in elite gay circles. According to Randy Schilts’s And the Band Played On, when playwright Larry Kramer recognized him at a Washington, D.C. cocktail party, he walked up to Dolan and threw a drink is his face. “How dare you come here?” he shouted. “You take the best from our world and then do all those hateful things against us. You should be ashamed.” Among those awful things was sending out fundraising letters for NCPAC, which claimed that “Our nation’s moral fiber is being weakened by the growing homosexual movement and the fanatical E.R.A. pushers (many of whom publicly brag they are lesbians).” Meanwhile, Dolan had, at the time of that 1984 encounter with Kramer, had just ended an affair with a male epidemiologist at the New York City Health Department, and was then enjoying everything the gay social scene had to offer.

Dolan knew how to raise money. “The “shriller you are,” he said in 1982, “the easier it is to raise money.” That’s been the recipe for anti-gay activists ever since. But four years later, Dolan himself was dead of AIDS at the age of 36. The following May, The Washington Post published an article about “the cautious closet” of Terry Dolan. His brother, Reagan White House speechwriter Anthony Dolan was livid, and took out an two-page ad in The Washington Times, arguing that “the greatest and most malicious falsehood in this story was its entire thrust, its basis: the claim that my brother lived and died a homosexual.” But he did live and die a homosexual, and a deeply closeted one at that. But despite his and the family’s best efforts, the secret was out, and no amount of wishful thinking otherwise would ever change that.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Big Centralized Government is a Michigan Republican Value

The Michigan Republican Party claims the usual litany of principles that most state Republican Party organizations claim. Their listing of beliefs speak a great deal about equality and nearly every point uses the word “individual”. The two beliefs that stand out as defining characteristics of Republicans, those that really differentiate from Democrats, are probably the following:

I BELIEVE the proper role of government is to provide for the people only those critical functions that cannot be performed by individuals or private organizations, and that the best government is that which governs least.

I BELIEVE the most effective, responsible and responsive government is government closest to the people.

Reading the full eight statements of belief, one might believe that Michigan Republicans believe in small government, individual self-determination, and equality under the law. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In reality, Michigan Republicans believe in utilization of state power to coerce compliance by counties and local governments, dictated values, and a class system based on religious dogma. And nothing illustrates that truth more effectively than House Bills 4770 and 4771.

The synopsis of HB 4770 pretty much says everything that needs to be known about its intent or the mentality of those who passed it:

A bill to prohibit public employers from providing certain benefits to public employees.

This bill prohibits local governmental employers – county, state, fire departments, etc. – from providing local governmental employees – librarians, firemen, teachers, lifeguards, etc. – with benefits under certain conditions. It removes from the ‘government closest to the people’ the ability to make decisions that reflect the values and needs of the people and puts the state in the position of dictating the terms and conditions of local employment contracts.

Specifically, the Public Employee Domestic Partner Benefit Restriction Act (yes, this really is it’s name), dictates that “a public employer shall not provide medical benefits or other fringe benefits for an individual currently
residing in the same residence as an employee of the public employer” unless they are an opposite-sex spouse or a dependent (or an intestate successor). Those gay employees of villages or towns who receive the same compensation package as their heterosexual office-mates will now be stripped of a portion of their pay.

The sole purpose is to impose the beliefs of the state legislators onto those municipalities that do not share their beliefs. Unable to convince local communities to engage in anti-gay discrimination, Republican legislators will now use the power of the state to force them to do so.

Companion bill HB 4771 adds the following language into the collective bargaining law: “(11) Health insurance or other fringe benefits for any coresident of an employee of a public employer on terms that conflict with the Public Employee Domestic Partner Benefit Restriction Act.”

I will give them this much: they are not pretending that this bill is anything other than what it is. As the bill puts it, “that group of employees” is it’s target. And while the bill would strip unmarried heterosexual couples eligible for domestic partner benefits (should any municipality provide such coverage), there’s no pretense that this is not a blatant attempt to strip gay people of equal pay.

Earlier this month, the Republican majorities in the House and Senate passed HB 4770 and 4771 on a party line vote (with the support of one Democrat) and on Thursday, Governor Rick Snyder (R) signed the bills into law.

[L]ead sponsor Rep. David Agema, R-Grandville, praised the governor’s decision, saying, “Time and again, Michigan residents have said ‘no’ to paying for the health benefits of the roommates and unmarried partners of public employees, and the governor’s signature today gives the people’s voice the rule of law.”

I don’t know of any municipalities that provide domestic partnership benefits to roommates and I don’t think Agema does either. Rather, I suspect that is just his way of demeaning gay people by pretending to think that long-term committed same-sex relationship are just “roommates”. Having imposed his religious views on those who do have different beliefs, he now is blaring his contempt for you.

And Agema is quite clear that it is truly his intention to impose his religion on the land, regardless of the beliefs or desires of others. Describing himself as a servant of “God, family, and country” (in that order) Agema runs Saboath House Ministries, a dominionist organization.

In today’s language, Sabaoth means “Taking Back God’s Property”. That is what Sabaoth Ministries is all about…going into the city and taking back God’s property.

Looking back over the past few years, it is clear that Michigan Republicans have become increasingly known for their anti-gay activism (and bizarre antics). Which is fine, I suppose. If the Michigan Republican Party truly wishes to be the political vehicle for extremist dominionists who seek to impose a talibanish form of theocracy, then they should have the right to present those views. If they want to be the party of strong centralized government and dictated social policy, that’s their right.

But I do object to them claiming to be the opposite. It’s time they give up the pretense of favoring the rights of the individual or the principle of smaller, local, less intrusive government.

Criminal Complaint In Miller-Jenkins Kidnapping Implicates Anti-Gay Web Site

Last October, we learned that Federal authorities have dropped charges against Mennonite minister Timothy “Timo” Miller, who was arrested last spring and charged with aiding and abetting in the kidnapping of Isabella Miller-Jenkins, specifically for purchasing airline tickets for the Isabella and Lisa Miller to Nicaragua. Miller, who is not related to Lisa Miller or to Isabella, was reportedly cooperating with the ongoing investigation into the kidnapping. Since then, another Mennonite minister, Kenneth Miller, was arrested and charged with aiding in Isabela’s international kidnapping conspiracy. The Advocate looked into the affidavit against Kenneth Miller, and discovered that the conspirators suggested using Life Site News, an unofficial Catholic anti-gay web site, could be used as an intermediary for communications:

In one November 2010 email exchange from addresses linked to Kenneth Miller and Timo Miller, Kenneth Miller allegedly expressed concern about the whereabouts of Lisa Miller and Isabella. Referencing an October 2010 news article on Lez Get Real reporting that Miller and her daughter were in Quito, Ecuador, Kenneth Miller wrote to Timo Miller in Nicaragua, “Is she still in the same country that she was? Can you get a hold of her?” The email was written in a mix of English and Pennsylvania German, a dialect spoken by some Mennonites.

“When we still want, we can send a letter about her through this, and we can get it mailed from another country over here. We can send it to a site that’s called lifesitenews,” Kenneth Miller continued in the email, according to a translation by an FBI contract linguist. “That’s a way that to get word to [unintelligible] friends. What do you think of that?”

The affidavit shows that Miller appeared surprised by the reference to Quito, Ecuador. “I don’t believe it,” he wrote, “but have you heard anything like that? Is she still in the same country that she was?…” Melanie Nathan, who had been an author at LezGetReal but left before it was revealed that the blog’s main writer was a hoax, now says that she believes the story she wrote placing Isabella at Quito was based on fraudulent “tips” passed to her by LezGetReal’s fake lesbian “Paula Brooks” (real name: Bill Graber). That would explain Miller’s apparent astonishment about reports of Isabella’s whereabouts and his desire to learn whether she was “still in the same country that she was,” namely Nicaragua.

The Advocate, which posted its story shortly before Christmas, notes that Life Site News has written extensively about the Miller-Jenkins kidnapping:

With headlines such as “Lisa Miller’s Daughter Appeared Traumatized by Visits With Lesbian ‘Mother,’” to “Ex-Lesbian Fighting for Custody of Own Child Against ‘Civil Union’ Partner,” Life Site News’ coverage of the multiyear custody battle between Miller and her former partner, Janet Jenkins, has been extensive. It includes forceful commentary in support of Miller’s conduct—a warrant for her arrest was issued in April 2010—as well as Timo Miller’s alleged involvement in the kidnapping. In a December 1 Life Site News op-ed titled “Cowardice: The State and Homosexualist Powers Against a Former Lesbian and Her Daughter,” Brazilian antigay activist Julio Severo characterized Lisa Miller and her daughter as victims in a perceived war against religious freedom. Jenkins, meanwhile, was cast as a predator and cynical “lesbian activist.”

Other anti-gay organizations have also been implicated in the kidnapping case. An FBI investigation revealed that Miller fled with considerable support from an employee and benefactor of Liberty University and Liberty Counsel, which provided for Miller’s legal defense.

Ron Paul’s Iowa State Director Is Also A Leading Anti-Gay Extremist

Michael Heath, State Director of the Ron Paul for President Campaign in Iowa.

This guy: Michael Heath. He’s the former director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, who resigned in 2009 because he was too much of a “lightning rod” when anti-gay activists began gearing up to repeal the recently-passed marriage equality bill. In 2008, Heath had blamed the economic crisis on “America’s sinful sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay unions.” In 2010, Peter LaBarbera announced that Heath would serve as board chairman for LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, just one of a small handful of groups identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay hate group. Last September, he joined the Ron Paul campaign in Iowa as that state’s director. (The announcement is dated November 16, although the news was picked up two month earlier.)

[via Warren Throckmorton]