Box Turtle Bulletin

Heterosexual Agenda: The Opposite of Mamas’ Boys

One of the more preposterous stereotypes about gay men is that they are in some way “too close” to their mothers. Joseph Nicolosi, one of the founders of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) has built his career on the theory that too-close mothers and too-distant fathers make gay men.

It’s such a shame that some of us were close to our mothers. Maybe we could have benefited from having a role model like this guy:

Steve Molin, 58, a self-employed contractor with a history of bizarre behavior, told police that his mother accidentally fell out of his moving vehicle shortly before midnight Tuesday while driving on Carey Road in Berlin, Md. He said he backed up after she fell.

“It was just an accident,” he told a judge Thursday, according to the Maryland Coast Dispatch. “She suffered from Alzheimer’s and was playing with the windows.”

But Detective Cpl. Mike Lupiwok, of the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office, said investigators concluded that she had been run over two or three times. “The investigation showed it was intentional,” he said.

You can find out more of what all of those heterosexuals who don’t love their mothers are up to here and here.

[Hat tip: Pam Spaulding]

DADT repeal vote next week

From the Washington Blade:

A senior Democratic leadership aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Reid met with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday to inform the Republican leader that the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill will come to the Senate floor the week of Sept. 20.

The aide said Senate leadership is anticipating the Senate won’t have unanimous consent to bring the legislation to the floor, so 60 votes will be necessary to end a filibuster and move forward with debate on the bill.

“We are going to take it the floor next week to see where the votes are,” the aide said.

The repeal of the military’s anti-gay Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy is part of the 2011 defense authorization bill.

Crist endorses gay rights

Charlie Crist is a bit of an anomaly. He served in Florida as a moderate Republican in the State Senate and two other statewide offices before winning the Governor’s seat in 2006. However his moderation has at times been a bit subservient to his desire to win and his positions of social issues tended to swerve right during primary season.

Crist has long been believed to be gay (and is one of the subjects of the movie Outrage). However, in the summer of 2008 when it became rumored that he was on Sen. John McCain’s short list of potential running mates, Crist quickly became engaged and married in December of that year. His positions on gay issues have been, well, all over the place.

In 2009, Crist announced that he would not be running again for Governor and would instead be running for US Senate. Conservatives were not content with Crist and so Marco Rubio, the House Speaker, challenged him in the primary. As it became clear that Crist could not win the party’s Primary election, he dropped out of running as a Republican and is now running as an Independent.

While campaigning against Rubio, Crist’s social issues veered right. But now that he is not beholding to the conservative wing of the Republican Party, Crist has again become moderate on social issues and released a list of positions on GLBT issues to Raw Story. Specifically, Crist endorses civil unions, ENDA, anti-bullying, adoption, overturning DADT, and immigration.

Crist is running in the polls just slightly behind Rubio while Kendrick Meek, the Democratic candidate, is tailing far behind. This may be a move to give Democrats some comfort with his social issues and to steal away votes from Meek. (Some insiders believe that the Democratic leadership is quietly encouraging support for Crist under the impression that he will caucus with the Democrats in the Senate)

Defeated Ugandan Anti-Gay Minister Blames “Political Mafia”

Uganda’s Minister of Ethics and Integrity James Nsaba Buturo, the staunch supporter of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill who was defeated in the ruling NRM party’s primary elections a week ago, is not going quietly into the good night. He is declaring instead that his loss was orchestrated by “political mafia”, while a party spokesman effectively tells him to STFU:

Did Buturo become too much of a liability for the Ugandan government? Perhaps. NRM’s conduct of its own party elections does appear to be a showcase in corruption, but undoubtedly its a form of corruption that suits party leaders. While President Yoweri Museveni is coming under criticism for the chaos, it’s not difficult to imagine that at least some of those outcomes were in line with his goals. When you’re dealing with a president who is in his twenty-fifth year in power, you can expect that very little happens by accident.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni

While it is difficult to read the tea leaves from so far away, I suspect that Buturo may have become too much of a problem for Museveni. During the international outcry over Uganda’s proposed Anti-Homosexuality Billlast winter, tensions appeared to have already formed within the Ugandan government. In one camp was President Museveni, who had to deal with international condemnations and threats to foreign aid. His approach was to urge lawmakers to “go slow” on the legislation while he appointed a special cabinet committee to come up with a way out of the mess. That committee recommended that the bill be “rejected” while agreeing that some passages should be passed under other guises (namely, Clause 13 of the bill which would outlaw all advocacy on behalf of LGBT people.)

But Buturo placed himself in an entirely different camp. He strongly rejected the committee’s recommendation, denounced the committee for allegedly meeting in secret without him, and demanded that the bill be passed in its entirety. (The bill still remains sidelined, for now.) And that wasn’t Buturo’s first act of defiance on behalf of the bill. At one point last December, Buturo may have been responding to  some sort of message from higher-ups when he suddenly announced that he would remain silent about the proposed law “until it has been passed or defeated.” That silence barely lasted a week,

And with that, the two camps appeared to have been well established, with Museveni trying to calm international outrage over the bill while Buturo remained a stubborn supporter of the bill’s passage. But the problem for Buturo is that in a country like Uganda, there is only room for one camp and Buturo wasn’t in it.

Now maybe Buturo’s loss really was the result of a legitimate voter backlash against the incumbent. Or maybe, as Buturo charges, his primary challenger won because of corruption and bribes. With such rampant corruption, Buturo’s complaint is very credible. But observing, as we are from afar, a country in which the ruling party completely controls the so-called “independent” election commission, and whose president is very determined to extend his rule to at least thirty years, it appears highly plausible that Buturo’s loss may have been preordained. It’s hard to know. Uganda is a country that is rife with conspiracy theories. But that doesn’t mean that some of those conspiracies aren’t real.

Uganda’s constitution allows the president to appoint someone to a state ministry who is not a member of Parliament. If Buturo is not around after next year’s elections, we’ll know that he became too much of a problem for Museveni. (And, to add further complication, that problem may not have had anything to do with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill after all. It may have been something else entirely.)

But if he still carries the title of Minister of Ethics and Integrity, we’ll know something else about Museveni’s aspirations. And that won’t be good either.

Gay Saudi Diplomat Seeks Asylum

Ali Ahmad Asseri, the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, has told NBC News that he has asked for political asylum in the United States. He has reportedly informed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that Saudi officials have refused to renew his diplomatic passport after discovering that he was gay and close friends with a Jewish woman. He was questioned by a DHS official on August 30 after formally applying for asylum. DHS and Saudi officials decline to comment.

Without a diplomatic passport, Asseri has been effectively fired from his job and has no legal means of remaining in the U.S. In an email to NBC news, Asseri said, “My life is in a great danger here and if I go back to Saudi Arabia, they will kill me openly in broad daylight.”

Saudi Arabia follows Sharia law, which calls for the death penalty and/or lashings for homosexuality.

Tenn. Lesbian Couple’s Home Torched

The home of Carol and Laura Stutte in Vonore, Tennessee was destroyed by a fire on Saturday, Sept 4, that investigators are now calling an act of arson. The couple had been harassed and threatened by one of their neighbors for the entire five years that they had lived in the home. An anti-gay slur was spray painted on their garage.

The fire occurred while the couple was away in Nashville with a neighbor, celebrating their fifth anniversary of moving into the home from Oklahoma. Carol’s adult daughter from a previous marriage were also with them in Nashville. Carol says that her partner is too afraid to come back to the property since the fire. The home and everything in it was a total loss.

Carol says that, despite the arson, she has been very appreciative of the support from people in the area who have offered to help. The Maryville chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is taking donations of clothing and money for the Stutte family. They can be reached at 865-368-6665.

Where is the outcry?

After Judge Victoria Phillips found the Military’s anti-gay Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy to be in violation of the First and Fifth amendments of the US Constitution, the usual wacktivists shouted their indignation. But other than the wackadoodle fringe, no one seemed to be either surprised or upset by the decision.

We are in the middle of a sprint to elections and I’ve not yet heard a single politician seeking to make an issue over the end of DADT. No indignant speeches from Senators demanding that the will of the people be upheld. Not even the cantankerous military chiefs are grumbling. Nothing at all.

Which – more than any announcements by the President or congressional leadership – tells us that this policy is dead. Over.

And if there is any doubt, consider the most telling (and amusing) line from a Washington Post article:

McCain’s office did not return requests for comment.

The logical (dangerous, nonsensical) conclusion of careless reporting on HIV

As I noted earlier this week, the story of an HIV study out of Ghent, Belgium, has been reported in a very irresponsible manner. Now the conservative Christian zealots in the UK have latched onto the story and repeated it in a way that is so far from the original as to be laughable (if it wasn’t disgusting and dangerous).

Running the headline Young homosexual men are fuelling HIV in Europe, the Christian Institute has declared the following:

Men who have sex with other men are fuelling HIV infections in Europe, according to a new report supported by the UK’s largest sexual health charity.

The study noted that “unprotected sex between men” is often reported as the main transmission route for the virus. However, the study itself examined all homosexual contact and did not distinguish between protected or unprotected sex.

Medical experts note that anal intercourse is, by its nature, the most risky form of sexual activity.

This deliberate attempt to distort the science to suggest that there is no risk difference between safer-sex and unprotected sex is immoral and reprehensible. This is the exact opposite of the intention of the research and efforts to stop the spread of the virus.

I don’t know how “Christian” these monsters are (they certainly seem to be outside the mainstream in the UK) but I’m sure their god has a very special place for them in the afterlife (and perhaps they should invest in asbestos jumpsuits).

White House Commits To Repealing DADT “This Fall”

I think this is the first time the White House has given a timetable for repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

The Justice Department is studying the decision, including the question of its scope and immediate effect and we expect them to announce their next steps after that review is completed.  The President remains committed to legislative repeal of DADT, and he will continue to work with lawmakers to achieve that goal this fall.  And he will continue to work closely with Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on an ongoing study of how to best implement the repeal. [Emphasis mine]

That is an official statement from White House spokesperson Shin Inouye as provided to the Washington Blade. Until now, the White House had been deferring to the Pentagon to set the pacing and means for repealing DADT, and they’ve been very cool to the idea of repealing it through the Defense Authorization Bill that has already passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate. Now for the first time, the White House is putting itself ahead of Pentagon brass — as it should be in our system of government where the military is under civilian control as our founding fathers intended.

LGBT advocates have been vocal in their disappointment in the administration’s abandonment of leadership, and that is contributing to the “enthusiasm gap” among Democratic voters going into the midterms in November. Yesterday’s ruling declaring DADT unconstitutional just adds to the pressure on the administration, as everyone waits for word from the Justice Department on whether they will appeal the decision. With this latest statement, can Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who is facing a tough re-election battle back home, avoid bringing the Defense Appropriations Bill up for a vote in September?

‘Love In Action’ Graduate Jacob Wilson Gets Engaged

Jacob Wilson has come a long ways in a short time.  In 2005 Jacob was coerced into attending Love In Action’s “Source” program (a residential ex-gay program) after his church discovered he was involved in a same-sex relationship with a minister from another local church.  Jacob was 19 and attended Love In Action at the same time as the Zach Stark controversy.  Since then Jacob has publicly spoken out about the harm he experienced in ex-gay programs though events such at Beyond Ex-Gay’s weekend of activism in Memphis in 2008.

Jacob and his fiancée Ben met through their fraternity at Iowa State, Delta Lambda Phi, an LGBT and progressive interest fraternity, and have dated for two years.

Jacob is currently a senior double majoring in political science and women’s and gender studies.  Ben completed his undergrad degree in computer engineering and is now a masters student in the same subject.

After Jacob graduates he plans to attend grad school and has yet to finalize what city they will be moving to.

Jacob proposed to Ben at a picnic over Labor Day earlier this week.

The fully legally recognized wedding ceremony will likely be held in Ames the summer of 2010 2012.  Ben is adamant there will be no drag performances at the reception.

Our congratulations to Jacob and Ben.

A few thoughts on LCR v. US

Ari Ezra Waldman, writing at Towelroad, has an excellent assessment of Log Cabin Republicans v. US, the court case in which the military’s discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was found unconstitutional. He answers some common questions and helps one understand the legal complexities of the law.

In addition, I have a few observations about the case and the decision.

1. Had this case been one brought by an individual, it might have become one of specific circumstances. In other words, a win in court might have been so narrow as to only apply to that one individual (as was the case in Witt v. the Air Force). But because this was an organization suing on behalf of members, the case became one of the constitutionality of the law, rather than the application for an individual.

Further, Log Cabin Republicans may be uniquely ideal for bringing the case.

Often gay organizations are perceived (often correctly) as being part of a progressive ideology which is generally hostile to military action, military service, and military life. However, as an organization that has long supported “a strong national defense”, the Justice Department could not suggest that the plaintiffs were disingenuous or hypocritical and there are no anti-military statements out there which could be brought up in court.

The two gay serviceperson’s organizations also could have sued and probably had less challenge to their standing. But in the court of public opinion, Log Cabin Republicans may have a greater ability to appear principled and less like an angry ex-employee. Further, LCR is more immune to accusations of being far-left anti-military activists due to their name alone.

2. The finding of violation of the 5th Amendment is particularly important. This is a continuance of the recent trend to find gay people to be a unique class of people, as opposed to just a behavior. As gay people continue to be a class, any efforts to enact laws which restrict the equality, freedom, or rights of gay people will be held to scrutiny and, as they all are based in animus, tossed out.

This is key to our freedom. If we are just a bunch of folks who whimsically decide to engage in some behavior, then such a decision can be punished without being in violation of the constitution. But as gay people are recognized as individuals sharing a common immutable trait, then such laws are held to higher and higher standards and such animus becomes not only legally but socially unacceptable.

DADT Rally At White House Announced

GetEqual and local Washington, D.C. LGBT advocates have announced a rally at 2:00 pm today in front of the White House to demand that President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder instruct the Department of Justice not to appeal yesterday’s ruling declaring “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” unconstitutional. The rally will also demand that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) immediately schedule a vote on the Defense Authorization Act, which contains language that would start the process of repealing DADT.

GetEqual’s press release announcing today’s rally describes this as a “moment of truth for President Obama and his administration.” The rally will take place at the north side of the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue near Lafeyette Park.

Defeated Ugandan Anti-Gay Minister Continues To Threaten Gays

We noted on Wednesday that Uganda’s Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo was defeated in Uganda’s ruling party’s primary elections, which means that he will not stand as the National Resistance Movement’s candidate for Bufumbira East in the 2011 elections. And that means that Buturo, who was a staunch supporter of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, would lose his influential Cabinet post. But this report that comes to us via Radio Netherlands indicates that under Uganda’s Constitution, President Yoweri Museveni has the power to appoint ministers who are not members of Parliament. That may explain Buturo’s confidence:

Nsaba Buturo was addressing the media at the Uganda Media Centre this week. He said the stand against homosexuality in Uganda is not only the responsibility of individuals but that of the government as a whole. Buturo stated this after the gay communities in Uganda celebrated the loss of Nsaba Buturo’s bid for for re-election as a Member of Parliament for the National Resistance Movement in his Bufumbira East constituency.

Nsaba Buturo warned that Uganda was determined to crack down on homosexuality and pornographic materials which he called a terrible vice and a curse.

“I am sorry for the gay communities in Uganda who think that my loss marks the end of our war on homosexuality and pornography” Nsaba Buturo says. “I am still here. As a nation we have a decent culture and moral values, it is our stand as a government and we are not going to shift even an inch from it” he swore.

Update: Uganda’s Constitution is posted online (PDF: 459 KB/192 pages). The relevant clause is clause 113 on page 84:

113. Cabinet Ministers.

1) Cabinet Ministers shall be appointed by the President with the approval of Parliament from among members of Parliament or persons qualified to be elected members of Parliament. [Emphasis mine]

Servicemenbers: Do Not Come Out

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network warns gay and lesbian service members, including those in the Reserves and National Guard that yesterday’s ruling against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” does not mean that the ban against gays and lesbians serving openly is lifted. Servicemembers are warned not to come out.

The deep-sixing of DADT is not a done deal, and it is unclear what practical impact this ruling will have at this stage. It may require further rulings in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and possible the U.S. Supreme Court before the unconstitutional law is finally nixed. That’s why it is critically important that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid place the Defense Authorization Bill, which contains language repealing DADT, on the September calendar before the Senate goes home ahead of the November elections.

Senate Not Off the Hook on DADT Repeal

Despite yesterday’s ruling that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the military’s ban on LGBT Americans serving openly, violates the First and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Senate is not off the hook in its obligation to repeal the 1993 law. It’s not clear at this stage whether any injunction which may be issued by U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips would be binding on the U.S. government nationwide. If not, then it could still be years before the case is decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, and that assumes that the Department of Justice chooses to appeal the ruling.

The Senate is still in its August recess. When it returns this month, there will be tremendous pressure to quickly wrap up work so Senators can go back home and hit the campaign trail in November. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is expected to announce shortly whether the National Defense Authorization Act, which currently includes DADT’s repeal, will be on the legislative calendar. If it is not on the calendar, then the repeal will not likely occur in the current Congress. Some two-thirds of all Americans approve of DADT’s repeal, including most Republicans. As Dan Savage says, if this fruit were hanging any lower, it would be a potato.

Update: A potato? Make that a truffle. Late last night, OneMan-OneWoman, an affiliate of the National Organization for Marriage, tweeted, “There is no need to prohibit gays and lesbians from openly serving in the Armed Forces. They should have the opportunity to serve.” [Hat tip: Joe.My.God]