Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Hmm, and just what's so bad about a pentacle....?

[Re: Wiccan Soldier's Widow Petitions for Recognition.

Original story and link to the audio of the complete story can be found at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5334805

Quoted from NPR's website, as listed above:
"All Things Considered, April 10, 2006 · The widow of a Nevada National Guardsman killed in Afghanistan wants her husband's Wiccan faith recognized. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs permits 38 religious symbols to adorn headstones and memorials, like the one commemorating Sgt. Patrick Stewart's unit. That list includes the Christian cross and even a symbol for atheists, but the government has not yet approved the Wiccan pentacle."] ============================================


The only truly fair (and definitely legal) thing to do in this case is either to allow the pentacle or take down all the crosses and everything else....otherwise there's clearly a bias and preferential treatment being given.

Now....as to WHY this is currently being denied, I think we can all clearly see that it's on account of the pentacle being assumed as evil by Christians (fundamentalists, Catholics and even-more-moderate/mainstreamers), because they count it as witchcraft/Satanism whether it's inverted or not.

But...under a truly non-establishmentarian form of law (non-preferential in terms of any religion being assumed/mandated), what one religion merely thinks of another and its symbols should not have an effect on the legal rights of that other religion to have its symbols recognized and used as a proper denotation of faith. It's
like (in business) claiming possession of someone else's trademark only to defame it. Just because some paranoid Christians may say that the pentacle means devil-worship, that doesn't mean they should be allowed to stand in the way of a fallen Wiccan soldier getting his due dignity.

ALSO...that means that even the inverted pentacle as a proper symbol of Satanism, and even a swastika as symbol of Odinism or Asatru (assuming that to be the self-chosen denotative symbol), should deserve the same right-of-use as religious symbols so long as the practiced faiths falls under the legal boundaries of 'freedom of religion'...controversial, yes, but listen:

I think that the primary societal justification of any religion's legal freedom should be this -- that its followers do not harm, molest, exploit, coerce or defame others (including among their own community) as part of the primary tenets of their belief, and that they do not advocate violence or political mandates against outsiders on account of whether they themselves follow the same beliefs, rituals or specifically cultural/moral restrictions.

If your religion holds to that, great and welcome to the free exercise and expression of it in a free world -- and if not, then why the hell should it deserve any respect or toleration as a matter of "personal belief"?

Monday, April 10, 2006

An apt word for these days: "heffalump"

Oh, you're gonna love this one that I found....it fills, I think, a sore need in today's play-it-safe-and-get-the-votes world. Here's the pitch:

'Brokeback Mountain' author angry about best-picture loss
Associated Press/Article Launched: 03/14/2006 5:39 PM PST

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Annie Proulx, whose 1997 short story inspired the film "Brokeback Mountain," has penned a scattershot blast in a British newspaper unleashing her anger over the film's best-picture Oscar loss.

Proulx criticizes Oscar voters and the Academy Awards ceremony in the 1,094-word rant, which appeared in Saturday's issue of The Guardian, a liberal paper boasting 1.2 million readers daily.

The best-picture Oscar went to "Crash," which focuses on race relations in Los Angeles.

Academy members who vote for the year's best film are "out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city," Proulx writes.

The 70-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning author points out that "Brokeback," which was nominated for eight Academy Awards, was named best picture at the Independent Spirit Awards one day before the March 5 Oscars.

"If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit choices," Proulx advises.

She even lashes out at Lionsgate, the distribution company behind "Crash."

"Rumour has it that Lionsgate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash -- excuse me -- Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline," Proulx writes.

She decries the "atmosphere of insufferable self-importance" inside the Kodak Theatre, the Oscars site, and describes the audience as a "somewhat dim LA crowd." The show, she writes, was "reminiscent of a small-town talent-show night."

"Clapping wildly for bad stuff enhances this," Proulx writes.

She notes that "Brokeback's" three Oscar wins, for original score, adapted screenplay and direction for Ang Lee put it "on equal footing with King Kong."

When Jack Nicholson announced "Crash" as the best-picture winner, "there was a gasp of shock," Proulx writes.
"It was a safe pick of `controversial film' for the heffalumps," she writes, using the elephant-like "Winnie the Pooh" character to describe academy voters.


"For those who call this little piece a Sour Grapes Rant," Proulx concludes, "play it as it lays."

Calls by The Associated Press to Proulx's Wyoming home and her literary agent, Elizabeth Darhansoff, were not immediately returned Tuesday.


So there you have it, folks....HEFFALUMP is the new word of the day!!!

Closely related to its more-famous political lookalike the mugwump (a political candidate or figure who paranoidly avoids taking any firm public stance that might jeopardize his chances of election/reelection), the heffalump also has discernable homophonic ties to the word "philistine" and "halfway" and the slang euphemism "effin'", reflecting the author's anger as an artist at the Academy voters who played it safe by choosing a film that mostly reiterated and illustrated what most civilized people know as basic concepts of human/social decency rather than actually challenging their attitudes and boundaries of acceptance, making them think too hard about something they'd often rather sweep under the carpet.

I'm not saying myself that Crash is a bad movie, mind you, but I have heard a lot of criticism of its relative simplicity/exaggeration/'preaching to the choir' on matters of racial tension. In the arts as well as in politics, actually being perceived as promoting acceptance (and the avoidance of tragedy...) of "the love that dare not speak its name" is sometimes just too big of a liability in comparison to "can't we all just get along?". One could clearly see the sociopolitical calculation in the distribution of awards, however it started and however many voters contributed to it. It was there. It is not a misperception.

And now we have a word -- a fun and fulsomely scathing word! -- to summarize in shorthand those who want to be seen as socially enlightened but won't take risks of alienating the supposedly-moral mainstream...such as every politician who says he/she supports gay rights but reserves "marriage" as a term too sacred, or demurs on the custody and raising of children as a responsibility that shouldn't be entrusted save as a last resort...everyone who believes in "separate but equal" social restrictions and freedoms; the acceptance of "private" activity so long as it's silent and invisible as any sort of real relationship or active community/part of society; the U.S. military's famous compromise of "don't ask, don't tell"; the half-hearted prosecution of crimes, allowing defenses of violence and murder as having been 'understandably' provoked by transgender deception or gay sexual solicitation/innuendo....and even the spreading trend of decriminalization/protection of "gender expression" that STILL leaves unchallenged the multiple obstacles of social sex-coding, medical probations and legal-documentation hoops and hurdles in the way of legal gender recognition....

And in religion too -- the political pandering to what's established/respected by precedent; the cliquery of even liberal monotheists as if they were all the religion that ever mattered in society; the mostly-unquestioned tenet of popular faith that social preference, if not 'official national religion' status, belongs to Christianity over-and-excluding all other faiths from serious concurrent consideration...oh, unless of course they have a well-known habit of fighting, boycotting and/or killing for the respect they want. Funny how the most uncivil religions....enh, need I continue that one...?

Yeah. Heffalumps. Unable to put their full and visible weight behind what needs to be seen, needs to be changed. Thank you, Annie Proulx -- you've made a much-needed contribution to contemporary social rhetoric, and I'll be doing my part to spread it where it needs to go.

Monday, April 03, 2006

"Black vs. Queer" government deal--aka the smart way of splintering minority power...

(also cross-referenced on other sites, including full text below for a closer look after commentary)

Re: Norcross church wants ‘tough love’ for gays

Hmmm....logic check here, anyone?

"I love homosexuals," Pleasant said. "That's why we have programs here to help them change."

Now what other group of people in the world can a person get away with saying that about? If gays were Muslims instead, there'd be the friggin' Stonewall jihad over shit like that!

And that little "Black Contract with America on Moral Values"--

In exchange for black churches focusing on defeating marriage for same-sex couples, the churches will receive money through the government's faith-based initiative programs....

--first of all it's morally obscene, and secondly why the hell is this news not being broadcast all across the country, that the GOP is essentially bribing black churches to aid in denying full civil rights to another minority group? Does it not matter because there wasn't slavery involved, just like no socio-political situation can ever be compared to Nazi Germany until you actually have mass killings and concentration camps?

The reason the Third Reich got so far in their campaigns against minorities -- ethnic, religious or "degenerate" -- is that they knew how to divide people against each other, to have them constantly vindicating themselves as good/loyal citizens and others as troublemakers who deserved what they got...the less they demanded equal rights or made themselves visibly deviant, the underlying reasoning was, the less that anyone could possibly have a problem with them....the whole "sweep yourselves under the carpet" approach, which in the case of "invisible" or semi-visible minorities has always been a convenient way of making the assimilated minorities blame those who stick out (drag queens, Hasidic Jews, butch lesbians, stereotypically effeminate gays) just for visibly sticking out.

[Reference the Daughters of Bilitis for this one...they were a groundbreaking social organization for lesbians, but they were also committed to the idea of "blending in" as feminine in dress and public behaviour as a group imperative.]

Any reasonably intelligent ruler/administration knows that the best way to maintain power is to keep the less-powerful factions fighting against each other rather than letting them see their common causes/complaints and unite against those on the top. Currently, we have a prominent number of token/exceptional black political insiders, who serve as a reassurance that the government is committed to racial equality -- even if socio-economic equality is the furthest thing from the White House's collective mind. We have a clearly expressed political desire afoot to permanently prevent same-sex marriage, even though the idea of marriage as being solely for procreation went out the window ages ago...we even have gay and lesbian commentators who say that to gain the right to marry would be a trap into the same old 'traditional-values' social system, and that maybe it shouldn't be a goal afterall.

Loyal queers...in a way, or at least being used as such, tolerated so long as there's not too much uppityness for full social equality -- look, have we not heard of this before?

In shorthand: blacks are being visibly courted through their churches, gays are being re-demonised as society's scourge (as if that ever stopped, in some areas that socially aren't even out of the nineteenth century or maybe even the seventeenth) -- and if enough blacks and other ethnic minorities feel that their socio-moral concerns are in line with those of the government -- if they have that feeling of being in good with the government on the same sympathetic ground -- then they won't notice quite so much that they're still stuck in the same old ruts as before, still prone to poverty and privation, neglect and criminal assumptions.

Notice too, that nowhere do these ministers say that black men on the "down low" ARE gay or bisexual as even a temporary/curable condition...because that would be an insult to the very image of strong/macho black masculinity that they're playing into, the same proud stereotype that made this phenomenon happen in the first place 'cause black men couldn't dare to be with each other for fear of compromising the social reputation of their race. Just like, for example....oh, gay Catholic men entering the priesthood 'cause their immigrant neighborhood communities had such a high and insular pressure towards marriage and procreation that there was no other discreet option. Same for nuns who didn't want to be mothers. Hell, all through history people have entered religious orders to get out of the babymaking demands of society.

But in black society it's not about real desires, right?--it's all the fault of the "homosexual agenda" (does it float around on its own just seducing unwary people together?) and women not putting out enough to satisfy their men (again, the supposed insatiable potency of black males--see "Aryan sexual paranoia", perhaps?). Throw AIDS
into that as a punishment-consequence (again!) and you got yourself a moral crusade....

This makes me sick. Thank you for posting it, and I hope the word gets around as quickly and thoroughly as possible that this manipulative shite is going on. People who can't see and learn from the patterns of the past before things reached their worst are far more likely to see the worst repeated.

Aureantes

============================================
[as posted in hyperlucidity -- the eternal pathology]:

In hyperlucidity@yahoogroups.com, indiscriminately_tactless wrote:
Anything I could say about this will be said. I'll just re-iterate my "Ugh," of disgust and contempt, however.

************************************************
Norcross church wants ‘tough love’ for gays
Anti-gay Rev. Lou Sheldon headlines ‘family values’ summit

By ANDREW KEEGAN
Friday, March 31, 2006

Married black women who do not have regular sex with their husbands are to blame for the "down low" and the rise of HIV infection among African Americans.

That was just one message delivered during a two-day summit on "Protecting the Biblical Institution of Marriage and Family Values," held March 25-26 at Kingdom Builders Christian Center, a large predominately black church in Norcross.

"Apostle" Jamie Pleasant presides over the congregations, which cites more than a thousand members, according to its web site. He has a doctorate degree from Georgia Tech in Business Management and started the church in 1995.

Addressing the "down-low," a term that describes married black men having sex with other men in secret, Pleasant told hundreds of worshipers March 25 that God intended man and woman to procreate.

"The marital duty is not being fulfilled," Pleasant said. "Why are we with you women? Just think about it...we have a strong sex drive. You need to do your part and keep the marriage bed pure. Whenever your husband wants sex it is your duty to say yes."

`Preachers never lie'

Rev. Lou Sheldon, chair of the Traditional Values Coalition, a conservative group opposed to gay civil rights, was the guest speaker for the weekend. His organization is actively recruiting large black churches in its effort to battle the "homosexual agenda."

In January, Sheldon, who is white, and 70 black pastors who supported President George W. Bush met in Los Angeles. The summit yielded the "Black Contract with America on Moral Values," the Los Angeles Times reported. In exchange for black churches focusing on defeating marriage for same-sex couples, the churches will receive money through the government's faith-based initiative programs, the paper reported.

Sheldon, who told the Norcross congregation that he has been fighting "gay rights" since 1972, began his sermon by declaring, "Preachers never lie."

"We have a battle on our hands," Sheldon said. "The homosexuals lose every time an issue is on a ballot but more and more activist judges and legislators are supporting them. It is important that people of color speak up because the press will listen to you."

Sheldon then played a video to illustrate his point. Images of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and civil rights marches were mixed with photos of leather-clad men, drag queens and topless women marching in Pride parades.

"The homosexual excuse is `we want civil rights,'" Sheldon said after the video. "Have they ever been denied the right to vote? Have they ever had to sit in the back of a bus? They have hijacked the freedom train to Selma."

Gay adoption was also a key theme throughout Sheldon's two-hour talk.

"The homosexuals have gone from their bedrooms to the classrooms, and the press is always playing up the well-dressed homosexual helping these minority children," he said. "It is up to us to make sure our little children are not being violated."

Cries of "mercy" rang out when Sheldon claimed that 85 percent of all lesbians have been sexually molested.
"Our heart must go out to them," he said. "They don't trust men and need female counseling."


Sheldon concluded his address by telling attendees, "There is no such thing as a gay gene. It is a tragic and unfortunate learned behavior that must be stopped or homosexuality will destroy society."

`Impotent' words?

The author of "The Homosexual Agenda," Sheldon encouraged worshipers to purchase his book that is filled with statistics similar to those mentioned during his talk.

The National Black Justice Coalition, a black gay group focused on fighting both racism and homophobia, works to refute claims by anti-gay groups that the majority of African-Americans oppose same-sex marriage.

Sylvia Rhue, NBJC director of religious affairs, attended the meeting in Los Angeles this year where Sheldon addressed black church leaders.

Despite his anti-gay rhetoric, Rhue said Sheldon, 72, is not as effective as many people believe.

"His words and shenanigans are impotent, incompetent and ignorant," Rhue said. "His pronouncements shrivel and die in the light of truth and show how desperate he is. They cannot win by telling the truth and we cannot lose by telling the truth."

Jay Brown, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay political group, said Sheldon's statistics are downright lies.

"These are bogus studies being pushed by a messenger with absolutely no credibility," Brown said.

`Tough love' for gays

After the program, the leader of Kingdom Builders Christian Center told Southern Voice he does not hate gays.

"I love homosexuals," Pleasant said. "That's why we have programs here to help them change."

Pleasant equated the church's role in dealing with gays to that of a parent.

"If a child does something wrong and you spank them, it's not because you hate them," he said. "It's tough love."

Questioned on the apparent contradiction of using the civil rights message advocated by King, which included gays, in the fight against gay rights, Pleasant said that both Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King were wrong.

"While I respect everything they did for us, I truly believe what the Bible says comes first," Pleasant said. "What we're trying to do is protect society."

Pleasant said the church would work to defeat any measure it deems "un-biblical," including gay marriage and gay adoption.

Alton Pollard III, director of the black church studies program at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, said the ongoing racism of the white church and society plays an important role in why many black churches reject homosexuality.

"Stereotypes of black hypersexuality and fertility, male and female, are central to the grand reluctance of many black churchgoers to be more affirming and inclusive," Pollard said. "Black people have been blamed for every sin under the sun ... they will not willingly accept yet another."