As Americans, it is our birthright that all people are created equal and deserve the same rights, privileges, and opportunities. Since our earliest days of independence, our Nation has striven to fulfill that promise. An important chapter in our great, unfinished story is the movement for fairness and equality on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This month, as we recognize the immeasurable contributions of LGBT Americans, we renew our commitment to the struggle for equal rights for LGBT Americans and to ending prejudice and injustice wherever it exists.

LGBT Americans have enriched and strengthened the fabric of our national life. From business leaders and professors to athletes and first responders, LGBT individuals have achieved success and prominence in every discipline. They are our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, and our friends and neighbors. Across my Administration, openly LGBT employees are serving at every level. Thanks to those who came before us the brave men and women who marched, stood up to injustice, and brought change through acts of compassion or defiance we have made enormous progress and continue to strive for a more perfect union.

Presidential Proclamation--Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month

quite fixated on the issue of homosexuality, for some reason

And then he went off on what he affectionately called “his tirade” — giving the same mangled pseudo-Aristotelian spiel about how natural rights have to be grounded in natural law, meaning substance, and the final result of the reproductive organ must be a reproductive act, and all of that.

“Yeah, yeah, I get your argument, I understand it, ” I tried to interrupt, But he said that I didn’t, and he finished.

“But the vast majority of married couples partake in sodomy — oral sex, anal sex, fetishes. Hasn’t your girlfriend ever given you a blowjob? I think the government should just get outof the whole marriage business!”

Everyone around us agreed with that statement. Sensing some momentum, I went on: “I’mthe one who says that my values shouldn’t have anything to do with government. It’s youwho wants to impose his own biases upon the rest of the world!”

Nate Gunderson pondered why it was such a burning issue for Ryan.

“Because conservatives should not be upholding groups who support homosexual marriage and sodomy.”

I said something I don’t quite recall, and he mentioned something about how he could “take me on” physically if he needed to, to which I mentioned that his quick resort to force and threats said a lot about his political philosophy.

He said at around this point that he needed to go, and put out his hand to say goodbye. I stared at him, refusing to shake his hand, and he said “Well, I don’t really want to shake your hand, you’re intrinsically evil.”

We all started walking away, with him talking to his girlfriend, and me talking to Nate, blasting Sorba more.

Someone who was with him asked Sorba: “Really, though, he had a point: why do you care about this so much when the economy is in shambles and the debt is growing and spending is out of control?”

“Because it corrupts the youth and the culture,” he replied.

When we reached the area near the escalator downstairs, he turned on his camera. I put out my arms, striking a mocking pose, but realized he kept holding the camera at me.

“Wait, are you recording or taking a picture?” He was recording.

“Ah! OK…Well, I’d like to say, then, that the person behind the camera is a Hitler Youth waiting for a fuhrer to sweep him off his feet into a grand national project so he can sacrifice individuals like stock-fodder to his own biases.”

He turned off the camera and approached me. I told him he should get his girlfriend to give him a blowjob so that he could experience the joys of sodomy. He put two of his fingers an inch from my face and said that he’d want to fight me if a girl wasn’t around. “Ah, the use of force!” I said again.

It essentially ended, there.

The Atlantic | "Well, I Don’t Really Want To Shake Your Hand, You’re Intrinsically Evil.”

Yo, stop it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com

"Everyone who wants to do good to the human race always ends in universal bullying." - Aldous Huxley

The faces of the Yes on 1 campaigners in Maine as they hear the election results:

Reddit.com | Comment: "When prop 8 passed in California, there was a shot of the reaction from the campaign headquarters. I'll never forget this. At the center of the image was a guy in a suit throwing both hands up, mouth agape in pure jubilation of victory. It was as if he's just won the Lotto. I just couldn't understand how someone could be so thrilled about having gotten so little. What did he get? Nothing. How did his life change? Will he not have to get up for work in the morning? Are his bills any cheaper? Has a loved one who was sick been cured? Does he get more money, video games, blowjobs, or whatever he likes to do in his spare time? He gets nothing. It was all because it felt so good to hurt someone."

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they'll just have to learn how to be babies longer." - Andy Warhol

“‘Harvey Milk Gay Day’ would teach schoolchildren the very controversial values of Harvey Milk,” Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a self-described pro-family organization, said in a statement.

“Based on the historical record of Milk’s sordid life, this could include teaching elementary and secondary schoolchildren that adult-child homosexual ‘sex’ is OK, having multiple sexual relationships at the same time is OK...”

Writers of the bill hope that students will be required to participate in “exercises remembering the life of Harvey Milk, recognizing his accomplishments, and familiarizing pupils with the contributions he made to this state,” the bill read.

Thomasson said the organization was concerned such “exercises” would include “gay-pride parades on campus, cross-dressing exercises, and mock gay weddings.”

The Daily Pilot | Board of Education Opposes Harvey Milk Day

...yeah, Harving Milk Day promotes the "gay lifestyle" just like how Martin Luther King Day encourages kids to live a black lifestyle. Y'know, cause acting out stereotypes is how we honor people who were assassinated for fighting for civil rights.

"Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they'll just have to learn how to be babies longer." - Andy Warhol

A problem with interventions that use role-playing to beat prejudice is that bigots usually aren't motivated to take the perspective of the groups that they discriminate against. In a new study, Gordon Hodson and colleagues have tested the effectiveness of an unusual alien-themed intervention for reducing homophobia that involves participants taking the perspective of a homosexual person, without really realising that that is what they're doing.

Hodson's team tested the homophobic tendencies of 101 heterosexual students and then had 79 of them complete the so-called "Alien-Nation" simulation, whilst the remainder acted as controls and attended a lecture on homophobia. For the Alien-Nation task, the students formed groups of four to five members and imagined landing on an alien planet that's populated by aliens who look exactly like humans, but who don't allow any public displays of affection, and live in same-sex housing and reproduce by artificial insemination.

The participants answered questions about how they would cope with life on the planet and maintain their lifestyles. They also shared plans for how to behave romantically in secret and how to identify other humans. Research assistants then asked the participants whether the situation applied to any real-life groups. The participants failed to recognise the parallel with homosexuality, but the research assistants pointed out the comparison and drew attention to ways that people who are homosexual deal with the constraints of an intolerant society.

BPS Research Digest Blog | Intervention Helps Reduce Homophobia

ass, gas, or cash; nobody rides for free

PostSecret

We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are

For the Bible Tells Me So
Website | Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

:rage:

It's not 1993 anymore.

In 1948, President Harry Truman signed an executive order ending racial segregation in the armed forces. In the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama promised to end another kind of discrimination in the military: the long-standing ban on gay service members. But nearly six months into his presidency, he has yet to make good on that promise. Congress also has taken no action.

Now the latest push is coming, at least in part, from elsewhere. Former Army linguist Jarrod Chlapowski told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that he and others hope to make a national cause of repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which prohibits openly gay people from serving in the military. The Clinton-era law has led to the dismissal of more than 13,000 gay service members.[...]

"A lot of people ask me, you know, 'Why is a straight, Irish Catholic former altar boy of the year in 1987 at St. Anthony's fighting for this?' " Murphy said at the launch of the tour. "Cause I took an oath. I took an oath as an officer. I took an oath as a congressman to support that Constitution and what that Constitution stands for — and that's equality." [...]

So far, Murphy has persuaded 151 Democrats and one Republican to co-sponsor his bill.

NPR | Veterans Call Out Obama On 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

keep your eyes peeled for subversive threats to society

Did you catch that? See the guy in the blue polo? That symbol on his shirt is the logo for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay and lesbian advocacy group. And in the background? That’s a rainbow flag towel on the golf bag.

GOOD Magazine Blog | Orbitz Explores Its Sexuality

end the war on love

Sections 162 to 165 of the Kenyan Penal Code criminalize homosexual behaviour and attempted homosexual behaviour between men, which is referred to as "carnal knowledge against the order of nature". The penalty is 5 to 14 years' imprisonment. The age of consent is 16. Lesbian relations are not prohibited in the law.
Wikipedia | LGBT Rights in Kenya

In the wider scheme of things, I don't exist. The Kenyan gay man is a myth and you may never meet one in your lifetime. However, I, and many others like me do exist; just not openly. I know it's anonymous and thus contradicts the essence of what I am aiming to do. But if it does inform, educate, and demystify the Kenyan gay man, then the purpose is served.
Rants and Raves of a Kenyan Gay Man

Homosexuality has been referred to as "carnal knowledge of another against the order of nature" by the Ugandan government.
Penal Code Act 1950 (revised)
§ 145 (sexually neutral)
“Any person who— (a) has carnal knowledge of any person against the order of nature; (b) has carnal knowledge of an animal; or (c) permits a male person to have carnal knowledge of him or her against the order of nature, commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.”
Wikipedia | LGBT Rights in Uganda

Of course we hope that what happens does not come home to us. There are many who are very willing to jump on the bandwagon and abuse us. And our community is saturated with awareness of our sexuality. But they are blind. They just do not see us. A ‘homo’, the kind that Ssempa and Co talk about, has horns, a tail wrapped behind dark black, light-eating robes, wicked eyes and eye teeth, ready to bite and suck blood and ‘recruit’.

That serves us very well. We are too human to approximate to the stereotypes.
Gay Uganda

i love a computer

"Alan Mathison Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, logician and cryptographer.  Turing is often considered to be the father of modern computer science. Turing provided an influential formalisation of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine. With the Turing test, he made a significant and characteristically provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence: whether it will ever be possible to say that a machine is conscious and can think. He later worked at the National Physical Laboratory, creating one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, although it was never actually built. In 1948 he moved to the University of Manchester to work on the Manchester Mark I, then emerging as one of the world's earliest true computers. [...]

"Turing was homosexual, and at that time homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom and regarded as a mental illness and subject to criminal sanctions. In 1952, Arnold Murray, a 19-year-old recent acquaintance of his, helped an accomplice to break into Turing's house, and Turing went to the police to report the crime. As a result of the police investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray, and a crime having been identified and settled, they were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. Turing was unrepentant and was convicted of the same crime Oscar Wilde had been convicted of more than fifty years before. [...]

"On 8 June 1954, his cleaner found him dead; the previous day, he had died of cyanide poisoning, apparently from a cyanide-laced apple he left half-eaten beside his bed. The apple itself was never tested for contamination with cyanide, and cyanide poisoning as a cause of death was established by a post-mortem. Most believe that his death was intentional, and the death was ruled a suicide. His mother, however, strenuously argued that the ingestion was accidental due to his careless storage of laboratory chemicals. Biographer Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing may have killed himself in this ambiguous way quite deliberately, to give his mother some plausible deniability. Others suggest that Turing was re-enacting a scene from "Snow White", his favourite fairy tale. Because Turing's homosexuality would have been perceived as a security risk, the possibility of assassination has also been suggested. His remains were cremated at Woking crematorium on 12 June 1954."

Wikipedia: Alan Turing