A Change of Heart.

https://youtu.be/MU_ZP2j74bY

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Lt. Governor Spencer Cox addressed a vigil held Monday night to honor the victims and survivors of the mass shooting in Orlando. Here is a transcript of his remarks:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for being here tonight on this very solemn and somber occasion. I begin with an admission and an apology. First, I recognize fully that I am a balding, youngish, middle-aged straight, white, male, Republican, politician… with all of the expectations and privileges that come with those labels. I am probably not who you expected to hear from today.

I’m here because, yesterday morning, 49 Americans were brutally murdered. And it made me sad. And it made me angry. And it made me confused. I’m here because those 49 people were gay. I’m here because it shouldn’t matter. But I’m here because it does. I am not here to tell you that I know exactly what you are going through. I am not here to tell you that I feel your pain. I don’t pretend to know the depths of what you are feeling right now. But I do know what it feels like to be scared. And I do know what it feels like to be sad. And I do know what it feels like to be rejected. And, more importantly, I know what it feels like to be loved.

I grew up in a small town and went to a small rural high school. There were some kids in my class that were different. Sometimes I wasn’t kind to them. I didn’t know it at the time, but I know now that they were gay. I will forever regret not treating them with the kindness, dignity and respect — the love — that they deserved. For that, I sincerely and humbly apologize.

Over the intervening years, my heart has changed. It has changed because of you. It has changed because I have gotten to know many of you. You have been patient with me. You helped me learn the right letters of the alphabet in the right order even though you keep adding new ones. You have been kind to me. Jim Dabakis even told me I dressed nice once, even though I know he was lying. You have treated me with the kindness, dignity, and respect — the love — that I very often did NOT deserve. And it has made me love you.

But now we are here. We are here because 49 beautiful, amazing people are gone. These are not just statistics. These were individuals. These are human beings. They each have a story. They each had dreams, goals, talents, friends, family. They are you and they are me. And one night they went out to relax, to laugh, to connect, to forget, to remember. And in a few minutes of chaos and terror, they were gone.

[Read more…]

Doubling Down on that Christian Love…

Pastor Roger Jimenez (Photo: Screen capture)

The Sacramento, California pastor of Verity Baptist Church went viral yesterday, after news of his sermon after the Orlando shooting spread.

“As a Christian, we shouldn’t be mourning the death of 50 sodomites. Let me go ahead and start right there. As a Christian, we shouldn’t be sad or upset,” Roger Jimenez said in his sermon.

YouTube has since removed the video of the sermon deeming it “hate speech,” but Pastor Jimenez is doubling down on his message, according to an interview with ABC10 News.

[…]

He wants people to understand, however, that his comments are not encouraging people to kill LGBT people.

“I’m not calling people to arms. And I’m not telling people they should go do this… What I’m saying is that if the government followed the laws of God, that’s what they would be doing. And if the government did that, I’d be fine with that,” Jimenez said.

“I would be fine,” he said if the government was the one who sentenced LGBT people to die. “I would be totally okay with that, if the government did that. That’s what they would do, if we lived in a righteous nation.”

The full story is here. Raw Story also has a summary of 7 Christian leaders also expressing the depth of their Christian love.

Once again, I have to ask, where are all you progressive Christians? What are doing, to police your own? You don’t get to say “oh, those people aren’t mine!” Yes, they are. They believe in the same god you do, the same holy book you do, the same tenets you do. When are there going to be legions of Christians denouncing these evil clowns?

For all those steeped in this smug, judgmental hatred, one of your favourite things is this, yes?: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13, out of your very own book of stories. You know one person who did that? Edward Sotomayor, Jr. A 34 year old man, out for a night of fun with his boyfriend. Edward put his boyfriend in front of him, and pushed him out the door, saving his life, as he was cut down by bullets. There’s love. No greater love, according to you christian lot.

Here is the face of love, no greater love than his:

Edward Sotomayor, Jr.

Look well, all you Christians, at a person you condemn, a person you’re happy is dead, a person who was more of ‘Christian’ than any of you could be in 3 lifetimes. Edward wasn’t alone, either. The other people there were also most concerned with their loved ones, and all you have hate. Is it now okay for all of us who are utterly disgusted by your revelry in death to start talking about how good and righteous it would be to round up all Christians, and have the government sanction them being shot in the head? No? Have you asked yourselves why not?

Atheist Perspective in Times of Tragedy.

Alternately, Thoughts and Prayers # 896,367.

The aftermath of our all too regular mass homicides follows a familiar pattern. “Thoughts and prayers” are with survivors, victims’ families and the affected city. There are defiant assertions from the horrorstruck that, “We will not tolerate this any longer.”

Some politicians call for an end to hate and better coordination between law enforcement agencies. And others, when there’s a whiff of Islamic heritage involved, play the “enemy is here” card, recklessly injecting accelerant into the roiling emotions of the moment.

For the media, standard reaction reporting involves transcribing pretty much all of the above. In the case of the Boston Marathon bombing, the Ft. Hood shooting, Paris, San Bernardino and now Orlando, it’s also standard practice to log the response from leaders of various religious faiths, most of whom encourage restraint and emphasize that Muslims themselves are collateral victims of these atrocities. The good, dutiful notion being to develop a body of sympathy that reflects solidarity among the broader local religious community.

While the Strib and the PiPress haven’t gone the latter route yet, at least when I called Monday, National Public Radio was hitting all the customary notes.
And all that is fine insofar as the objective is to register the solidarity of the community at large. But if the intention is ever to discuss the “perversion of religion,” a common enough refrain today and in past incidents involving radicalized Muslims, there’s at least one group, silent but no longer all that small or irrelevant, that the media rarely draws into these discussions, such as they are: atheists.

[…]

“I think we were called once, some time after 9/11,” says August Berkshire. “And no, no one else has called today.”

Berkshire is the founder and past president of Minnesota Atheists . He’s been active in the cause of challenging the belief systems of organized religions since the mid-1980s and jokes that current membership in the state is “probably around 250,000, although most haven’t paid their dues yet.”

Humor aside, Berkshire, a local delivery truck driver by day, is serious about the value of inserting an atheist perspective into conversations about religiously inspired violence. “Look, prayer didn’t do anything to stop this latest attack and prayer won’t do anything to stop this kind of violence from happening again. All it may do is make some people feel good for a while.”

[…]

But if the point is to engender an honest debate, you’d expect the atheist view to at least have a seat at the media table in moments like this. “Look,” says Berkshire, “at their origin, all three of the Abrahamic religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam — preach and warn against homosexuality. They’re antigay. A lot of their followers today may be cafeteria Christians, Jews and Muslims, picking and choosing what they want. But I’m talking at their scriptural origins. We reject that. Atheists reject the teachings of religions for a lot of reasons, but among them is the lack of respect for science. Atheists, if I have to point it out, are very accepting of gay equality and other minority issues. We understand that.”

With 23 percent of Americans in 2014 describing themselves as “nones,” which is to say having no religious affiliation, a nearly 50 percent increase since 2007, the atheist, or agnostic or “nothing in particular” perspective would seem to warrant at least as much regular reporting as what we get on priests, ministers and rabbis, certainly more than the “almost never” Berkshire describes.

[…]

Perhaps the problem with pulling atheists into a conversation about the “perversion of religion” is that spokespeople like Berkshire lack the curriculum vitae of traditional religious leaders. I mean, a guy who drives a truck cheek by jowl in a discussion with a priest, a minister and a rabbi?

But maybe the real issue is that the taint of taboo that still hangs to word “atheist.” Conventional journalism is partial to conventional wisdom and despite the steadily slumping numbers in church/synagogue/mosque attendance — and the rapid increase in those tuning out traditional religious messages — conventional journalistic wisdom has not yet reached a comfort point with overt atheism. Until that point is reached, speculation here is that mainstream news organizations will continue to treat it like a semi-reputable curiosity.

Full Article Here.

Congress Will Not Allow the CDC to Study Gun Violence.

AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

On June 2, Obama gave a provactive argument for common sense gun laws. He compared the issue of gun violence to auto fatality rates. Though direct action was taken to lower car-related deaths, such as seatbelt laws and required air bags, no studies are even allowed to be conducted on gun violence.

“Why don’t we treat this like everything else we use? We used to have really bad auto fatality rates. The auto fatality rates have actually dropped, precipitously, drastically, since I was a kid. Why is that? We decided to have seatbelt laws. We decided to have manufacturers put air bags in place. We decided to crack down on drunk driving and texting. We decided to redesign roads so that they were less likely to have a car bank. We studied what is causing these fatalities using science and data and evidence, and then we slowly treated it like the public health problem that it was.

We are not allowed to use any of that when it comes to guns because when you propose anything it is suggested that we are trying to wipe away gun rights and promote tyranny and martial law. Do you know that Congress will not allow the Center of Disease Control to study gun violence? They are not allowed to study it because the notion is that by studying it, the same way we do with traffic accidents, somehow that is going to lead to everyone’s guns being confiscated. If you buy a car and want to get a license—first of all you have to get a license, people have to know you know how to drive—you don’t have to do any of that in respect to buying a gun.”

[…]

Obama also notes that those put on airplane watch-lists are still free to purchase weapons. “Because of the National Rifle Association, I can not prohibit those people from buying a gun.”

Full Story and video at Out.

Where to Walk.

Facebook Los Angeles LGBT Center

The deadly attack in Orlando happened just has Pride Month was kicking into high gear across the nation.

In LA, the scare did not deter people from gathering at gay bars such as Akbar in Silverlake, which was filled to capacity on Sunday night, with revelers looking for comfort amongst friends.

Sunday also saw vigils springing up across the nation and several world countries, with more to come today and throughout the week.

If you go to weareorlando.org, you will find a list of events which have been scheduled, across the States, and around the world. You’ll find yourself scrolling down, and down, and down. The outpouring of love and strength is immense. Even though no one from ND entered local vigils at the site, there were two vigils in Fargo and Moorehead, and one vigil already observed in SD, with two more planned. If you can make one in your area, please do. Every person who shows makes a difference, demonstrates that we will stand strong, we will continue to fight, that our very existence is resistance.

Via Out.

No One Is Safe.

ChadMichael Morrisette’s art installation “No One Is Safe.” (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Each victim has a different face.

It’s a small, but vital, detail in ChadMichael Morrisette’s art installation, “No One Is Safe,” a response to Sunday’s deadly mass-shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

Morrisette spent four hours Sunday placing 50 distinct mannequins on the roof of his home near the intersection of Fountain and Fairfax avenues in West Hollywood, a visceral representation of the 50 people, the gunman among them, slain in Orlando.

“I’m not celebrating today. I’m not going to Pride,” Morrisette texted his boyfriend, after waking Sunday morning, his 36th birthday, and watching the reported death toll from the tragedy rise. “Instead, I started working.”

It took the visual artist, who also operates his own business as a brand consultant, four hours to put together the roof display, with the help of a few friends, who Morrisette called “loving enough to come and celebrate that way.”

The process was intense, even beyond the effort needed to get the mannequins in position.

“It was emotional stepping over the bodies, laying them out,” Morrisette said, each time reminded of what those on-site at the crime scene must have experienced.

The faces weren’t the only things that differentiated these mannequins from the rest in Morrisette’s collection.

While the mannequins used in Morrisette’s business are pristine, the models that found their way to his roof were flawed, not yet receiving the care needed to patch their missing eyes or fingers.

“Some have damage you can’t see from a distance. Pulling them from a pile of broken bodies, it began to make it a little bit more real,” Morrisette quietly explained. “It wasn’t beauty being represented. It was shattered and broken.”

Mannequins from ChadMichael Morrisette’s art installation “No One Is Safe.” (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Response to the display has been immediate and powerful. Morrisette admits hiding behind his privacy hedge to watch people’s faces as they take in the message being communicated by his work.

“People are moved. They stop and get out of their vehicles. They do U-turns. One person just bowed to me as they walked by, out of respect,” Morrisette said. “Stopped cars sit at the light and have a moment to reflect, and those are the faces I like to watch. That’s when I know I’ve actually caused someone to think about something.”

Artist ChadMichael Morrisette sits on the roof of his West Hollywood home where he has placed 50 mannequins, as a way of dealing with his grief and expressing his feelings over the mass killing in Orlando. (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Full Story Here. Hat tip to Morgan.

A Pink Moment.

In love. In remembrance. All photos are 1500 x 996, click for full size.

Free to use, no restrictions.

A bunch of, just, disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar, okay?

“The good news is that there’s 50 less pedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles. That’s who was a victim here, are a bunch of, just, disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar, okay? And then I’m sure it’s also gonna be used to push an agenda against so-called “hate speech.” So Bible-believing Christian preachers who preach what the Bible actually says about homosexuality — that it’s vile, that it’s disgusting, that they’re reprobates — you know, we’re gonna be blamed. Like, “It’s all extremism! It’s not just the Muslims, it’s the Christians!” I’m sure that that’s coming. I’m sure that people are gonna start attacking, you know, Bible-believing Christians now, because of what this guy did.I’m not sad about it, I’m not gonna cry about it. Because these 50 people in a gay bar that got shot up, they were gonna die of AIDS, and syphilis, and whatever else. They were all gonna die early, anyway, because homosexuals have a 20-year shorter life-span than normal people, anyway.”
— Steven Anderson, preacher at Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, AZ in response to the slaughter in Orlando.

I felt like I had been dipped in sewage just reading that, and dipped again posting it. If Steven Anderson wants to talk disgusting, I suggest he get in front of a mirror. It was just a short while ago that I brought up in a thread here that a lot of people (Americans in particular) still believe in the gay man equals pedophile canard. And there it is, in neon arrogance, the self-righteous judgment smug only Christians can work up into such a fine froth. There were women who died in Orlando. There were hetero people who died in Orlando. There were queer people who died in Orlando. Some of them were parents. All of them were loved. But here’s the same old Christian crap of old, disease riddled predators. Naturally, the only thing Anderson is truly concerned about is whether or not people might start looking at him sideways, possibly accusing him of hate speech. Oh, and of course, us lefty pinko commie rainbow warriors might take his bible away. Disgust, thy name is Steven Anderson, and all those like you.

Radical right-wing Christians must recognize the part their anti-gay rhetoric, legislation, hate speech and repeated attacks on the LGBT community played in the slaughter at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Yes, the terrorist homophobe who reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIL before he repeatedly pulled the trigger deserves all our anger and outrage. We will hear plenty about his radicalized religious beliefs in the coming days, but that is likely all the religious analysis we will hear in the media. But, we cannot let religious ideologues in the far-right Christian camp off the hook. Steven Anderson is not an anomaly. America has been painstakingly codifying beliefs he expressed into law. Polished politicians blunt the edges of Anderson’s words though the language of legislation but the hate and fear remains.

They will claim the assertion they have any role in the massacre as an attack on their religion – much like the consistent and well-orchestrated “war on Christmas” we heathens rage every year. They will tell you that their prayers are enough to overcome this act of terror. They will tell you Jesus wants you to arm yourself. “Get your guns before Obama takes them.” They will tell you this is about radicalized Islamist terrorists. They will whistle away the notion that guns or gays had anything to do with this tragedy.

And here is a major problem. Along with people busily straight-splaining, the rest are focusing on that terrible Muslim problem, because that’s the only terrorism that counts, and this was oh-so-definitely Islam based (even though it wasn’t), but you have a lot of Christians bristling over the idea that they might have had anything to do with this. Abrahamaic based religions all have the same root, and they have the same deep-rooted bigotry. How that bigotry is expressed isn’t the important bit – it’s why this expression is being allowed in the first place, why so many people who don’t have a personal stake in the current Christian war on all things queer, sit idly by, maybe let a small tsk escape their lip, shake their head, and decide to do nothing at all. Here in the U.S. open bigotry is being turned into law. People act like politicians spilling the most awful, bigoted bile is simply entertainment, yet another bad reality show.

The multitude of ways right-wing Christians discriminate against and kill – directly or indirectly – LGBT people can be incredibly nuanced.

[…]

Around the country LGBT couples are fighting for the right to adopt children. HIV is criminalized around the country putting a big red X on gay men and others. Gay men – by law – cannot donate blood. Most people didn’t even know that until Orlando. Federally funded abstinence-only programs populate our public schools masquerading as sexual education. What the actually do is preach sexual purity until heterosexual marriage, and they stigmatize girls and LGBT kids. How about the Great Bathroom Panic of 2016? It isn’t secular humanists behind these laws and programs; it is right-wing Christians serving in state and national office.

What message is all of this sending to our LGBT citizens? That you are less than, you are poison, your blood is tainted even if it’s not, you are after our children, you cannot love who you love. The message coming from the far right is “We Hate You”. Donald Trump gloat-tweets, Paul Ryan doesn’t mention guns or gays in his statement – just Islamic terrorists. The GOP’s (political party of choice for the far right Christian camp) presumptive presidential nominee and the US Speaker of the House deny any connection between the slaughter at Pulse and anti-gay hate crime.

The rest of Andy Kopsa’s excellent article is here.

World Blood Day, Oh the Irony.

Happy World Blood Donor Day! (You Still Can’t Donate).

While the husbands of men wounded in Sunday’s Orlando nightclub shooting are crying and praying, they can’t easily offer their spouses the one thing so many others can: their blood.

Defying federal policy, Patty Sheehan — Orlando’s lesbian city commissioner — announced after the shooting that she was recommending the city temporarily lift the Food and Drug Administration-mandated ban on blood donated from sexually-active gay and bisexual men. In response, Orlando hospitals appear to be welcoming donations from all queer men and transgender women — also included in the FDA ban — but it’s still murky whether the federal government will crack down on Sheehan’s directive and blood will actually get to the injured.

The Orlando massacre, in a grim coincidence, came two days before the World Health Organization’s World Blood Donor Day, observed today. While the mass shooting, the nation’s worst, briefly brought the FDA’s discriminatory policy to the world’s attention, it was quickly forgotten in the barrage of news updates about the Orlando killer and his victims.

[…]

The current prohibition has been in place since December, when the FDA amended its ban, so now instead of barring any male donors who had sex with men since 1977, the new rules turn away those who haven’t had gay sex in 12 months. For many, that’s still an outright ban on any gay or bisexual man, no matter the semantics.

[…]

GMHC and FCB Health joined together to launch a campaign called the Blood Equality campaign, which will plaster cities with posters that read, “My blood is type O, not type homo” and “My blood is type A, not type gay.”

Democratic legislators like Mike Quigley of Illinois, Barbara Lee of California, and out Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin also want the FDA to reconsider the ban, which the agency considers imperative to keeping the nation’s blood supply free of HIV. The three politicians disagree with the FDA’s assertion and jointly released the following statement late on Monday:

“The resiliency of the American people is always magnified after a tragedy, and we are witnessing that compassion as Floridians rally around the people of Orlando, and the local LGBT community, by lining up to donate much needed blood after Sunday’s horrific shooting at Pulse nightclub. However, we find it unacceptable that gay and bisexual men are banned from donating desperately needed blood in response to this tragedy. Blood donations are needed now more than ever, yet gay and bisexual men remain unable to donate blood due to an outdated and discriminatory FDA rule. For years, we have worked through both authorizing and appropriations committees to overturn the FDA’s donor referral policy for men who have sex with men. We’ve made progress; this past year, the FDA reversed a lifetime ban to a 12-month deferral policy. But this revision does not go far enough in ending an outdated policy that is medically and scientifically unwarranted and that perpetuates inaccurate stereotypes. Tragedies like the one we witnessed in the early morning hours on Sunday show how crucial it is for FDA to develop better blood donor policies that are based on science and on individual risk factors; that don’t unfairly single out one group of individuals; and that allow all healthy Americans to donate. Given the enormous response by the citizens of Orlando, including members of the LGBT community, to donate blood to help heal their community, the FDA should lift this prejudicial ban once and for all.”

Nations like Spain have ended blanket deferrals for gay and bisexual men, instead considering the sexual behavior of individuals when deciding who qualifies as a donor.

Full Story Here.

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Atheist Perspective in Times of Tragedy.

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Where to Walk.

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No One Is Safe.

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A Pink Moment.

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World Blood Day, Oh the Irony.

Happy World Blood Donor Day! (You Still Can’t Donate).

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Let us say the names of the 49 Orlando victims.

We will never forget those who died in the Pulse massacre.

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Happy World Blood Donor Day! (You Still Can’t Donate).

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