Box Turtle Bulletin

Laura Schlessinger: My Rights Were “Assassinated”

I haven’t even begun to talk about Sarah Palin’s utterly contemptible attempt to cast herself as a victim as Tucsonans were burying six of our dead. The reason is simple: I simply can’t wrap my brain around the kind of narcissism that prompts someone to release a video ostensibly addressing the tragedy that was 95% me, me, me, me, me.

Impromptu shrines are still popping up around Tucson.

But this lesser outrage presents a smaller portion that is more easily digestible. Laura Schlessinger appeared on the Today show yesterday to complain about the reaction to her use of the n-word last August. CNN’s Anderson Cooper was upset that she misrepresented CNN’s coverage of the controversy. I can understand that; he has a personal stake in that portion of Schlessinger’s comments.

But what I find deplorable (and, again, unbelievably narcissistic) is her use of the word “assassinated.” She said that the incident forced her to go on Sirius radio where she could “have the freedom of speech without being assassinated.”

There are victims, and there are “victims.” To help lessen the confusion between the two, what do you say we reserve the word “assassinated” for those who have actually been assassinated. Can we at least agree on that? I think a lot of people here in Southern Arizona would really appreciate the effort.

Why Family Research Council was so furious to be called a hate group

In December, the Southern Poverty Law Center updated its list of Anti-gay Hate Groups to include the Family Research Council and gave honorable mention to the National Organization for Marriage and Concerned Women for America. This did not go over well with the nation’s social conservatives.

Not much attention has been paid in the past to SPLC’s gay hate list. Most, like Traditional Values Coalition or MassResistance or any of Scott Lively’s three groups were so extreme and out of the mainstream that there wasn’t much defense that could be raised. And further, some were led by leaders like Lou Sheldon and Brian Camenker that, frankly, come across in public as not quite sane.

And some haters are convenient. Social conservatives can point at the Phelps family and say, “Thank God that I am not like that hater” and suggest that anything this side of a “God hates” sign is moderate and reasonable.

But this time SPLC’s announcement was not greeted with rolled eyes or casual disregard. Instead, social conservatives – from pastors to politicians – took to the media with harsh rhetoric and a desire to discredit SPLC. Family Research Council’s online petition drew a Who’s Who of religious extremists from Lou Engel to Linda Harvey to Brent Bozell. If anyone had every written a newspaper op-ed which railed against “the homosexual agenda” or put the word “gay” in scare quotes or called you a “degenerate” or a “pervert”, then they were there. So too were a couple dozen politicians including congressmen, governors, and a few potential presidential candidates.

The Family Research Council is well connected, and its spokesman, former LA state legislator Tony Perkins, has become the voice of the far right social conservative movement. Accusing him of hate is accusing the entire anti-gay industry of hate. And throwing in such activist groups as Concerned Women or NOM suggests that even mainstream anti-gay activism has hate involved.

But still, the response was so loud and angry. The religious right was furious and their reaction was way out of proportion to SPLC’s rather quiet announcement.

But if you understand Christian theology, you can see why. It’s because, by definition, a Christian group cannot be a hate group.

This is not just a “we good Christians don’t hate” sort of explanation or some “no true Scotsman” logical falacy. It’s not even a distracting platitude like “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Rather, the idea that a Christian group cannot be a hate group is definitional. And the authority for this definition can get no higher.

In the Gospel of John, written within the first century, Jesus is credited with setting up an amazing qualifier by which one either was or was not one of his followers. Further, he empowered this with a commandment.

John 13:35 – A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

By the words of Christ, one can either be his follower or be a hater. But not both. You may call yourself “Christian” and have all sorts of views about theology, but the one indicator that is a non-negotiable criterion is that you love.

And while this is in keeping with the overall theme of Jesus’ message as reported in the four gospels (love your neighbor, etc.), it takes a particular twist that can be quite troubling to those who operate as do FRC. Oddly, here, Jesus put the responsibility – indeed the right – of discerning who were his true disciples not on his followers, but on outsiders. The “everyone” here is not Peter and Andrew but, for example, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

So to be told by the SPLC that you engage in hate is to be told that you are not a follower of Christ, that your protestations of morality are, indeed, a sounding brass or tinkling cymbal, and that rather than being the Christian you think you are, you are really working for the Enemy of Christ. It is small wonder that that Family Research Council and their supporters are furious.

[In future commentaries, we will discuss the Christian definitions of love and hate, whether the SPLC got it right, and whether FRC or other conservative religious individuals and organizations can rightly be described and discussed using either word]

DC marriage appeal rejected by SCOTUS

For a case to be heard by the US Supreme Court, four of the nine justices must have an interest in discussing the constitutionality of the case. The challenge to the District of Columbia’s denial of a referendum on marriage equality did not reach that standard. (AP)

The court did not comment Tuesday in turning away a challenge from a Maryland pastor and others who are trying to get a measure on the ballot to allow Washingtonians to vote on a measure that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Bishop Harry Jackson led a lawsuit against the district’s Board of Elections and Ethics after it refused to put that initiative on the ballot. The board ruled that the ballot question would in effect authorize discrimination.

The facts are interesting.

After the DC Council voted to enact marriage equality, Bishop Harry Jackson (a Maryland preacher) got signatures to put a referendum on the ballot. But the District has a provision which disallows referenda on civil rights issues and the Board of Elections and Ethics deemed an anti-gay marriage vote to be just such a vote.

When the courts did not overturn this decision, Jackson appealed to the Supreme Court and asked for a stay. In March, Justice Roberts declined the stay. Now the case is settled.

We cannot extrapolate too much from this decision. However, the following seems to be true:

• There are not four anti-gay activist justices on the Supreme Court who are willing to take whatever steps are necessary to oppose equality.
• The idea that gay marriage is, indeed, a civil rights issue – or can legitimately be seen as such by an Elections Board – is acceptable to at least six of the nine justices.

It’s really all so predictable. At some point school administrators have to act or accept the blame for their failure to do so.

We’ve all seen dating ads that say, “Looking for White, Asian, Hispanic or Middle Eastern.” Those ads don’t need to tell you who they aren’t looking for, when you read the list you know exactly what is meant. You know who need not apply, who isn’t “their type”.

And when I hear the list of who is protected from harassment and discrimination and it runs merrily on with a list of everyone but the LGBT community, I know what that means as well. No one is fooled. Especially the kids.

This is from the student/parent handbook for Jefferson High School in Alexandria, Minnesota:

E. Verbal Assaults: Verbal assaults are abusive, threatening, profane, or obscene language, oral or written, toward a staff member or another student. This includes, but is not limited to, conduct which degrades people because of their race, sex, religion, ethnic background, physical or mental handicaps.

And “the majority of violations” of policy “that occur in the schools” include:

Assaults that are abusive, threatening, profane, or obscene whether oral, visual or written, toward a staff member or another student. This includes, but is not limited to, conduct which degrades people because of their race, sex, religion, ethnic background, physical or
mental handicaps.

If it’s religious, racial or sexual assault, then the Human Rights Officer is notified. But if it’s sexual orientation or gender identity then I guess no one cares at all. Or they certainly didn’t care enough to list it in their handbook.

On Saturday Jefferson High School Student Lance Lundsten committed suicide. (Dallas Voice)

According to his Facebook page, Lundsten was openly gay. On a Facebook memorial page in Lundsten’s honor, friends said that Lundsten had been bullied at school for his sexual orientation. Some students who knew Lundsten believed the bullying may have led to his suicide.

Look, this isn’t an isolated incident. In fact, I’m sick of writing this story. Over and over, changing the names but little else.

And again and again it’s the same pattern: a school that couldn’t care less, mean kids picking on the gay kid, frustrated parents and friends. And it’s not like we don’t already know what happens when you stick some gay kid in a tiny town where he or she is bullied and no one responds.

And they are all sooo surprised, sooo convinced that everything was just hunky-dory. As Principle Chad Duwenhoegger says on the school website:

We are very proud of our students. We have several leadership teams that provide a voice and an ability to create a culture and climate where all students feel comfortable and connected. Our students have taken ownership of Jefferson and strive to create an environment that is welcoming to anyone who enters our building.

I am so very sick of school administrators who do nothing or who assume that “it won’t happen here”, not with their lovely little good straight white Christian students in middle-America.

Well I have a message to the Principle Chads out there: Yes, it happens here. Right here where you made no effort to stop it. Right here where your policies said we’ll protect everyone except the queer kids. Right here where you are busy crafting a statement to release to the press which absolves yourself from any guilt over the fact that it was all so completely predictable.

Ireland formally recognizes same-sex couple

Although civil unions (which became legal at the beginning of the year) require a three month notice period under the laws of the Republic of Ireland, the nation began recognition of same-sex couples married abroad on Thursday. And on that day, officials officially recognized one such couple. (IrishTimes)

The couple, who work at Argos, formed a civil partnership at a ceremony in Northern Ireland last year.

Like other same-sex couples with a previous foreign civil marriage or partnership, their union became recognised under Irish law since last Thursday.

[But in the case of Glenn Cunningham and Adriano Vilar], there was a twist. On that same day, by chance, the pair were on a day off and at the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service offices trying to sort out Vilar’s residency status. He is Brazilian and has been living here on a student visa for the past two years or so.

“At first the officials didn’t know what to do, they’d never dealt with a legally binding civil partnership involving a gay couple,” recalls Mr Cunningham (43). “Eventually, the officials came back and said: ‘Congratulations – you’re the first couple in Ireland to be recognised as civil partners’. We were shocked – we couldn’t believe it!”

Mr Villar (29), adds: “My reaction was like, ‘Wow-wee, yahoo! Really?’ I’ve always felt quite insecure – only living here on a student visa. We went off and got a bottle of champagne to celebrate.”

Congratulations to Glenn and Adriano and to the many other Irish couples who now have, or soon will have, recognition in their homeland.

Tea Party Not Interested In Social Issues, ctd.

Remember when the tea party tried to sucker LGBT people into their movement by reassuring them that the party was only interested in fiscal issues?

Banning same-sex marriage was the focal point of a conservative tea party rally Saturday afternoon in Council Bluffs. About 35 people gathered at the Mid-America Center to hear speeches from Rep. Kim Pearson, R-Pleasant Hill, and former Republican state representative and current Family Leader lobbyist Danny Carroll.

“I’m a Christian, social, fiscal conservative,” Pearson told the crowd to much applause. “The social and fiscal conservative values work.”

…”The definition of marriage is between one man and one woman,” she said. “God is our ultimate law giver.”

Shooting Victim Threatens Tucson Tea Party Leader

James Eric Fuller, 63, a naval air veteran who was shot in the knee and had bullet fragments in his back as a the result of last week’s shooting at Rep. Gabrielle Gifford’s meet-and-greet at a Tucson Safeway, was involuntarily committed for a mental-health evaluation after allegedly threatening a Tucson Tea Party leader during a local town hall meeting:

The theme of the event was “An American Conversation Continued” —  the idea being to continue the conversation that a madman’s brutal rampage had interrupted.  So it was inevitable that the conversation would eventually turn to politics. It did, toward the end, with (ABC News Anchor Christiane) Amanpour leading a discussion on a very touchy but obvious topic:  gun control.

That’s where the atmosphere turned tense. When Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries rose to suggest that any conversation about gun control should be put off until after the funerals for all the victims, witnesses say Fuller became agitated.  Two told KGUN9 News that finally, Fuller took a picture of Humphries, and said, “You’re dead.”

When State Rep. Terri Proud (R-Tucson) rose to explain and clarify current and proposed gun legislation in the state, several people groaned or booed her.  One of those booing, according to several witnesses, was Fuller. Witnesses sitting near Fuller told KGUN9 News that Fuller was making them feel very uncomfortable.

The event wrapped up a short time later.  Deputies then escorted Fuller from the room. As he was being led off, Fuller shouted loudly to the room at large. Several witnesses said that what they thought they heard him shout was, “You’re all whores!”

Sheriffs deputies detained Fuller and charged him with one count of threats and intimidation, and said they plan to charge him with at least one count of disorderly conduct.  Humphries said that he plans to press those charges. The Associated Press reports that Fuller was taken to a local mental health facility for evaluation.

The town hall meeting at St. Odilia Catholic Church was organized by ABC-TV to discuss the shooting which killed six people and wounded thirteen, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Many Tucsonans were outraged when Humphries tried to blame the shooting on Gabrielle Giffords for not providing security at the event held at a Safeway parking lot. He also tried to cast the Tea Party as an additional victim in the tragedy.

St. Odilia had been the host of a community memorial service on January 11. Two of the six killed were Catholic, including nine-year-old Christina Taylor-Green who attended St. Odilia and sang in the parish’s children’s choir. Meanwhile, the Safeway where the shooting took place reopened yesterday morning following a moment of silence. Across town, a gun show opened at the Pima County Fairgrounds as originally planned and with nary a peep of protest. Things really are starting to get back to normal around here.

Update: Fuller apologizes:

Fuller apologized through his girlfriend, Dorothy Deruyter. He has been in a hospital since being involuntarily committed Saturday for a mental health evaluation but wrote a statement and called Deruyter.

Fuller apologized for his “misplaced outrage.” Deruyter said Fuller has no family or children, and was coping with the shooting almost entirely on his own and lost his temper.

Fuller is still undergoing psychological evaluation and treatment. Based on this New York Times profile, it looks like Fuller was combative before the shooting.

Southern Baptists kick out group that tolerates Broadway Baptist

Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, takes a bit of a don’t ask, don’t tell approach to its gay members. The church avoids taking theological positions on homosexuality – saying that they neither condemn nor condone it – and gay members are fairly open.

But the Southern Baptist Convention has no room for anyone who does not actively condemn gay people and seek to make their lives miserable. To be a Southern Baptist Church in good standing, it is not adequate to delegate such matters to individual conscience. Rather, opposition to homosexuality must take on the importance given to matters of faith such as the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and redemption from sin.

So in 2009 Broadway Baptist Church was booted from the General Baptist Convention of Texas, the a statewide affiliation of the Southern Baptist Convention. Baptist organization.

But it seems that the SBC is a lot like a sixth-grade girl who is seeking to control who is popular and who is not. Not only have they banished Broadway Baptist from the ‘cool kids’ clique, but they will kick out anyone who dares be their friend.

And the Tarrant Baptist Association, the Tarrant County group of Southern Baptists, dared to be friendly with Broadway Baptist. In fact, they allowed them to be part of the 395 churches that worked together in the county to provide support, outreach, and growth. How dare they?

So the Tarrant Baptist Association, in turn, was kicked off the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I’m not kidding. The official county association of Southern Baptist Churches was booted from their office in the Southern Baptist seminary because they didn’t ostracize one church who wasn’t adequately anti-gay. (Christian Post)

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has asked an association of churches to leave its Fort Worth, Texas, campus because the seminary says the group has a member church or churches that tolerate homosexuality.

A 1997 affiliation agreement between Tarrant Baptist Association and the seminary for use of an office building on the campus requires that the two organizations remain in “theological harmony.”

The seminary, which is associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, contends that the association has violated the agreement for retaining fellowship with a church or churches that don’t adhere to the denomination’s position that homosexuality is a sin.

From time to time some prominent Southern Baptist leader will rhetorically ponder, “Why do the homosexuals think we hate them? We don’t hate them, we love them and want them to live according to God’s Plan for their lives.”

Stop pondering.

Here is why we think you hate us. Because if one congregation is willing to let gay people even sit in the congregation, you kick them out of fellowship. Because if one collective of churches dares let such a congregation participate in ministry, you kick them out of fellowship.

We think you hate us because if you demonstrate rejection to a group whose only crime is to allow a member church whose only crime is allowing gay individuals to worship, then we KNOW that your animus, your contempt, your derision, and your rejection of gay individuals is of a level that if it is not truly hate then it is impossible to distinguish from it.

Some newly elected NH Republicans may vote against marriage repeal

When November’s election revealed that Republicans had achieved a super-majority (enough to overturn a veto) in New Hampshire, the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-gay activist groups gloated. Assuming that Republican registration equals anti-gay, they announced that they would immediately reverse New Hampshire’s marriage equality laws and override Governor Lynch’s veto to do so.

But the incoming Republican leadership isn’t interested in battling over marriage rights. It wants, instead, to deal with budget, taxes, regulation, business environment, and other fiscal matters. Anti-gay marriage is not on the leadership’s agenda.

Individual Republicans, however, have introduced language to reverse last year’s law. And social conservatives are assuming that when it comes time to vote they will have adequate power to overturn Lynch’s veto.

I’m not so sure. And neither are some in the Republican Caucus (The Dartmouth)

State Rep. Steven Cunningham, R-Sullivan, said that the newly elected Republicans may vote against a repeal of the same-sex marriage law due to their different ideologies regarding civil liberties and constitutional issues.

“It is a possibility it will pass, but I’m not convinced that such an effort will be as popular amongst Republicans as some of the other conservative issues facing the Republican Party,” Cunningham said. “I believe this year included a very large number of constitutional-oriented and libertarian individuals who chose to run under the Republican banner, embracing 80 percent of the Republican platform, but differ in areas of individual rights and issues enumerated in the constitution.”

Some Republicans told their peers in the state House that they would not be comfortable voting for a repeal after they had already granted same-sex couples marriage equality, according to Nordgren.
…
State Sen. Nancy Stiles, R-Hampton, who originally voted against the legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in New Hampshire, said she has since seen no problem with the legislation and plans to vote against the repeal if it reaches the Senate.

All in all, I think that it is unlikely that marriage equality will be reversed in New Hampshire. But it is too soon to be certain.

A truly misguided ruling

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has its collective head up its collective butt. (Rolling Stone)

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has ruled that “Money for Nothing,” a Dire Straits hit from 1985, is too offensive for Canadian airwaves. The song is being singled out for the repeated use of an anti-gay slur — “that little fagg*t” — in its second verse.

The little fagg*t with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy, that’s his own hair
That little fagg*t got his own jet airplane
That little fagg*t he’s a millionaire

Now there is no doubt whatsoever that the lyrics of this song are sexist, racist and homophobic. But the important matter is whether the song celebrates these attitudes or mocks them.

The song narrator is a appliance store delivery man who is resentful of the rock stars he sees on MTV who “ain’t working” but are “banging on the bongos like chimpanzees” and have “the earring and the makeup” and who get their “money for nothing and their chicks for free.” And the lyrics are based on direct quotes from one such guy in a New York appliance store who Mark Knopfler overheard making some of the exact comments, grabbed a pencil, and scribbled down.

But along with the resentment is envy and regret, the acknowledgment that he didn’t “learn to play the guitar” and he doesn’t have his own jet airplane and he isn’t a millionaire. And, as the song was, ahem, heavily played on MTV, it shouldn’t take genius to figure out that the musicians were singing about the attitudes of the people who derided and hated them.

When I first hear Money for Nothing, the “fagg*t” language was jarring… until I finally realized that the protagonists lyrics answer himself, are a reminder of what his own bigoted values have given him. His choices have led him to hauling refrigerators and installing microwave ovens.

But I guess the Very Serious People at the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council just don’t get irony or sarcastic social commentary. So no more “I want my, I want my, I want my MTV”.

Manager At Scott Lively’s Coffee Shop A Convicted Child Molester

Scott Lively (left), Michael J. Frediani (right)

Anti-gay extremist Scott Lively, who travels the world to preach that the international gay cabal is recruiting young children into homosexuality through child molestation, hired a convicted child molester as manager of his Springfield, MA coffee house. The manager, Michael J. Frediani, 38, who lived in an apartment above the coffee house was arrested this morning by Springfield police for failing to register as a Level 2 sex offender.

In New York, Frediani was convicted of sexual abuse in the first degree and aggravated sexual abuse in the second degree in 1996.

The charge relates to an arrest by police in Canandaigua, N.Y., in 1995 in which the victim was an 11-year-old girl. The description of the offense was “deviate sexual intercourse.”

He was sentenced to two to four years in state prison, serving at the Midstate Correctional Facility from September of 1996 to February of 1999, according to Carole Weaver, a spokeswoman for the state’s Division of Parole.

New York determined that Frediani was a level 3 sex offender under that state’s classification which indicates that Frediani is considered most likely to reoffend again. Lively says he didn’t know about Frediani’s past, and didn’t appear too concerned about it:

Frediani had told Lively that he had a “rough past before he became a Christian,” Lively said, adding that he did not know any specifics and that he saw no need for a criminal background check.

“That’s the beauty of the salvation of Christ,” Lively said. “When you come to Jesus Christ, and you accept his forgiveness for your sins, then you are forgiven by Him and enter a new life. It doesn’t surprise me that he had a rough past, that he has a criminal record.”

Right. He warns everyone that they should keep gay people away from their children, but just anybody can hang out with the local teens at Lively’s coffee shop. Yeah. Good thinking.

Lively’s coffee shop drew criticism last week from local officials when his new storefront ministry became a hangout for truent teens while skipping school.

Oh, and that bit about Lively turning over a new leaf and no longer being interested in anti-gay activism? I was skeptical. “‘Let’s see where we are, say, a year from now,” I wrote. Well…

Lively said he continues to serve as a conference speaker around the world on the topic of homosexuality, but “it has nothing to do with the ministry in Springfield.”

That wasn’t even a full week.

Memorial And Rally? Very Well: A Memorial and Rally

The memorial was nothing short of magnificent, and it was exactly what this city needed. It was, at turns, somber and celebratory. Tucsonans have been in a severely depressed funk, dazed and stunned that something like this could happen here.

I hear some small–minded grumbling that the event was somehow too “raucous” or a “rally.” Well you know what? A rally is just what we needed. Those who sit in judgment in their comfortable offices and studios on the coasts tut-tutting last night’s memorial haven’t had to drive by the still-closed Safeway every morning and every evening to and from work. They haven’t been within a thousand miles of the nightly vigils at UMC and at Gabrielle Giffords’s congressional office. They haven’t turned on television to see their own neighbors grieving in wall-to-wall coverage. They haven’t picked up their local newspapers to read the dozens of stories about the tragedy and then turn the page, thinking perhaps that they were finished with those heartbreaking stories, only to be confronted by the same familiar names and photos in the obituaries. They haven’t made plans to attend some of the funerals which begin today. They won’t pull over to the side of the road as the funeral processions pass on the way to the cemetery. They haven’t seen their beloved town turned into something unrecognizable. When they have experienced all of this, maybe then they can legitimately criticize our desire last night to tentatively shake off our sack cloths and wash away the ashes, if only for a moment. But not until then.

Tucsonans have undergone a stunned mourning for five solid days now. It’s about time we also celebrate, and yes, cheer, our community’s coming together and move toward the future. It is time to rally our wounded community, and to resolve to build a better, kinder, and more civilized world.

When tragedies like this strike, we expect the President to come grieve among the people. And yet, Tucsonans appeared genuinely surprised and touched when the President announced he was coming here. I had wanted to take a half-day off work and get in line for the memorial, but when I got up yesterday morning I learned that a long line had already formed the night before. By noon it was already clear that there was no way anyone who wasn’t already there would get into the McKale Center. So my partner and I saw it on television at home. I don’t know how the major networks carried the event. We chose to watch it on local TV, which simply carried the live feed and ditched the voiceovers, pundits and real-time crawls.

I thought Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s address was splendid. She was kind, wonderfully gracious, and very generous. The blessing at the beginning was touching, given by someone whose ancestry in Tchuk Shoon predates the arrival of “Americans” and reminds us of the timelessness of this valley that has drawn so many to the Old Pueblo, as we like to call our city. We celebrated our heros who ran toward the gunfire, and we learned for the first time that Gabby Giffords had opened her eyes. And with that, it is my hope that President Barack Obama’s exceptional speech opens all of our eyes, so that we, too, can build a society worthy of Christina Taylor-Green’s spirit.

Click here to read a transcript of President Obama’s speech

Fallout of a police sting in a safe place

In 1990 I accidentally stayed in the Warm Springs district of Palm Springs. I say “accidentally” because I misunderstood what was meant by “gay resort” and thought that it simply was gay owned and a safe friendly place to stay where you didn’t have to worry about any homophobic smirking or unpleasant heterosexist assumptions. I guess I didn’t notice the “clothing optional” sign and it really wasn’t until much later that I realized that I stayed in the middle of what was basically a sex club without having a clue. Ah, naive youth.

The eleven mostly-small, often tacky, clothing optional “resort” motels that find a home in Warm Springs, are the sort of phenomena that could only spring up in a gay friendly and sexually tolerant environment. That may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it does provide an outlet to a subset of gay men who enjoy a style of sexuality that includes less intimacy and more immediacy. And while there are undoubtedly those for whom Warm Sands is a consistency, I suspect that most visitors consider it an excursion, a place to get away from the normality of life and go play at hedonism in a safe place.

And what could be safer than Palm Springs? With a majority gay city counsel and perhaps half of the residents gay – often retired gay couples – who would bother the gay revelers? After all, Palm Springs is home to the White Party and the Dinah Shore Weekend and has long been happy to overlook a little excess in the name of tolerance.

Even before Palm Springs became the haven for men who decorate their retirement home with perhaps a tad too many mid-century gew-gaws (just saying), it was Hollywood’s playground. The glamor hotels were where the beautiful people came to be photographed in swimsuits, but the Warm Springs spas and resorts were built by folks like Howard Hughes to let starlets play outside the confines of 1950’s Los Angeles morality (and even occasionally for the male leads to leave their pretty arm candy and spend some quality time together).

This desert oasis has long been disinterested in puritanical morality and given the wild set a greater degree of freedom. But in June 2009, Warm Sands ceased to be a safe place for the sexually nonconformist. That was when Police Chief David Dominguez and District Attorney Rod Pacheco decided to crack down on the “c*cksuckers.”

Dominguez set up a sting in which “shirtless and squeezed into tight jeans, a hunky undercover Palm Springs police officer hovered in a shadowy parking lot and lured men cruising the Warm Sands neighborhood”. The sting involved fifteen officers over four nights and the police chief personally attended. In total nineteen men were seduced by the officers into doing something for which they could be arrested.

Personally, I find the notion of police stings to be troubling. It is difficult to know with certainty the number of otherwise law-abiding people who are enticed to an infraction of the law, but it is inevitable that such entrapment will result in “crimes” that would have never been committed. Such policing starts with a presumption of guilt and maximizes the lure in an effort to capture as many “criminals” as possible; Fat Freddy and Homely Hank are not the cops they put in disguise.

And such work does little to reduce crime. You don’t reduce theft by leaving out a pile of twenty dollar bills on a park bench and then arresting anyone who picks them up. And you don’t reduce the citizens’ exposure to lewd behavior by having an attractive man talk someone into briefly exposing themselves in the shadows of an empty parking garage.

But stings are a quick and easy way for police to demonstrate that they are “protecting the family” and “cracking down on criminals,” especially the perverts. And because there has historically been little downside to such action, these stings have always been around. And even an outcry by the gay community generally results in no punishment to officers or the police force and, at best, a promise of “sensitivity training.”

Yet, I’m willing to consider allowances for efforts to address a problem. If there’s a problem. And the police chief claimed that there was, indeed, a problem and that the sting was done in response to what police said were complaints about drug use, public sex and prostitution in Warm Sands.

The difficulty is that when the attorney representing the men asked, no formal complaints could be documented. In fact, during the previous two years, only two indecent exposure cases involving gay men had been reported (in a city that is half gay), while ten complaints involved men exposing themselves to women. None were in Warm Sands.

Oh, there had been casual mentions to council members about the goings on (and there undoubtedly had been goings on). But the residents appear to have mostly just accepted the cruising as part of living in the area, just as do the residents of West Hollywood and Chelsea.

There had developed, however, a pattern of police obsession about the Warm Sands district. Cops would drive by and if they saw men talking, they would tell them “take it inside” even though they were not committing any crimes, showing indication of committing crimes, or doing anything more criminal than, well, talking. And it appears that the police decided that the gay men in the Warm Sands district were an offense to them, if not to anyone else.

Yet still this sting, like so many, probably would not have raised much attention had it not been for the actions of the District Attorney. Most people are willing to shrug their shoulders and think, “well, I guess you’ll stay zipped up next time, won’t you.” Even when the police set out to entrap the public, there is an attitude that the punishment of those entrapped is not such a great burden and so they give the police the benefit of the doubt.

But Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco decided to take action that is never taken in these instances. Invariably treated across the country as lewd conduct, the men caught in such stings pay a fine, suffer embarrassment, and go on with life a bit more carefully.

Pacheco decided instead that he would destroy their lives. Rather than lewd conduct, Pacheco filed charges of indecent exposure, a criminal category designed to punish predatory acts on unwilling victims which requires the guilty party to register for life as a sex offender.

This gave the men reason to fight. And fight they did. Public defender Roger Tansey, who represents six of the men, set about asking questions. The answers he found shook up the city.

Tansey discovered that the sting was not actually based on documented complaints. Further that the police were well aware of a pattern of heterosexual lewd conduct at a water park and in a local garage and did nothing, making no arrests, designing no sting operations, and – as might be the tradition of the city – looked the other way. It was only gay men that the police chose to target and prosecute.

So Tansey went public and the city responded.

Pacheco, who no doubt thought that his excessive prosecution would be popular in conservative Riverside County, was the first to discover that cracking down on the homos may require a price. (LA Times)

Former Riverside County Dist. Atty. Rod Pacheco’s hard-line prosecution of the Warm Sands cases, which have yet to go to trial, rallied many in the Palm Springs gay community to pour money into his challenger’s campaign in the June election. Pacheco lost to Superior Court Judge Paul Zellerbach by 8,400 votes.

But Tansey’s coup came when he got the testimony of officers conducting the sting. Although the chief had long claimed that they had not engaged in slurs, it turns out that he personally engaged in slurs and egged his officers on. (Desert Sun)

It’s the first time Dominguez has admitted to making expletives during the lewd-conduct sting, which has sparked controversy across the valley over how it was carried out, the severe charges those arrested face, and the gay slurs police made during surveillance.

Dominguez was alleged to have said “what a bunch of filthy mother-f*ckers” and “you guys should get paid extra for this,” according to a Sept. 11 complaint filed by an attorney representing at least one officer who took part in the sting.

Chief Dominguez “apologized” and promised sensitivity training. But unlike virtually every other situation that we have seen occur over the past couple of years, in Palm Springs the community was too powerful. “I’m sorry for calling you mother-f*ckers” and “we’ll take sensitivity training” just wasn’t good enough.

Even the city’s report based on their probe of the situation was not adequate. Absent any details, a report of “appropriate disciplinary and correction action,” sounded like happy platitudes designed to make a public embarrassment go away rather than a city that took the targeting of a demographic for police harassment seriously. And as the city manager and some council-people rushed to Dominguez’ defense, emails poured in and Warm Sands based community organizations expressed their frustration.

Last Thursday, Police Chief David Dominguez resigned. He may not be the last to go. The fury over the city’s pooh-poohing of the situation may result in long-seated council people getting tossed out on their ear. Much of it may depend on the outcome of Tansey’s hearing on January 20th to have the charges dismissed. Incoming DA Paul Zellerbach (a Republican, as is Pacheco) has just been sworn in and has not yet announced how his office will approach the arrests.

The Palm Springs gay community is peculiar; it is older and in many ways quite conservative. Many of the gay retirees are Republican and even the majority Democrats often share the perspectives of men their age. But don’t be fooled into thinking that this makes them any less offended by discriminatory policing practices. In fact, it is precisely because of the perception of acceptance in Palm Springs that many decided to retire in a safe place.

NOM’s rather deceptive anti-Chafee ad

The battle for marriage in Rhode Island has begun and the National Organization for Marriage has rolled out their first ad. Well, the rolled it out and then had to roll it back in because they misspelled Chafee’s name, but it’s back out there again with the correction.

The problem, of course, is that NOM is just about as honest as they ever are. Which is to say, not at all.

They tell us that Chafee only got 36% of the vote and imply that this means that only 36% of Rhode Islanders support marriage equality. But let’s look at the vote totals:

Lincoln D. CHAFEE (IND)…..123,571 36.1%
John F. ROBITAILLE (REP)..114,911 33.6%
Frank T. CAPRIO (DEM)……….78,896 23.0%
Kenneth J. BLOCK (MOD)…….22,146 6.5%
Three Others…………………………..2,799 0.8%

But what NOM doesn’t tell you is that Caprio and Block also ran on a pro-marriage-equality platform and one of t. In fact, two-thirds of Rhode Islanders voted for a candidate that pledged to support same-sex marriage.

They then do something that – if they had the ability to feel shame – would surely give them trouble sleeping. They compare Chafee’s percentage of an three-credible-person race to the results from an entirely different race. To understand how dishonest they are being, you have to have some background.

In the race for Lieutenant Governor (in which Chafee was not a candidate), the Republican nominee pulled out and threw her support to perennial candidate Robert J. Healey, JR., the founder of the Cool Moose Party (a riff on Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party). She said that Healey agreed with her views on smaller government; and indeed Healey ran on a platform of eliminating the office of Lieutenant Governor. While NOM pretends that the Cool Moose is oh-so-amusing, it was actually the not-a-Democrat choice.

In a two-credible-person race with the Democratic candidate Elizabeth Roberts (and one minor party candidate), Republican-endorsed Healey got 39.2% of the vote. And it is that 39% that NOM compares to Chafee’s 36%.

But NOM doesn’t tell you that Liz Roberts, who got 54.5% of the Lieutenant Governor’s vote has endorsed marriage equality and supports Chafee’s efforts.

And they don’t tell you that truthful people, honest people, don’t try to fool you by comparing apples to pineapples. And, if they do, you don’t get to distort the numbers by using big bold completely-bogus graphics.

Because not only can you not compare different races involving different numbers of contestants, but the number of voters who cast a ballot in the Governor’s race was not the same as the number that voted in the Lieutenant Governor’s race. 39% of the Governor’s race is not 39% of the Lieutenant Governor’s race.

In his two-person race, Healey the Cool Moose, got slightly more votes than did Chafee in his three-person race that night; 2,492 to be exact. But that isn’t 3% of the vote like NOM’s graphic pretends.

Now graphics representing the real numbers between the two would have not illustrated NOM’s point very well, so they just used whatever they wanted. In other words, NOM behaved in a completely dishonest manner.

Why are we not surprised?

So here is my challenge to Maggie Gallagher in 2011: Maggie, I’m not going to ask you to stop lying. I’m not going to request that you take up honesty as way of life. All I ask of you now is that you stop pretending that you are on the side of God and righteousness and morality; it offends my Christian faith.

Marriage repeal not on New Hampshire GOP agenda

The AP is reporting

The House Republican’s legislative agenda will not include repealing gay marriage.

House Republican Leader D.J. Bettencourt confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that jobs and the economy will be the top priorities that Republicans will use as their scorecard to measure themselves by for the next two years.

Bettencourt said social issues will take a back seat. He said one abortion initiative will be on the agenda but he declined to say what it is.

Perhaps at 27, Bettencourt represents a younger generation Republican Party.