(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
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[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.
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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."
