Leonard Pitts Jr.: Blacks must confront their homophobia

A lot of folks in our GLBTQ community were assigning blame for the reasons we lost the vote on Prop 8 last fall. The emotional elation felt by many with the Obama win for the White House was dashed immediately with the thud of defeat over Prop 8. Some blamed the unprecedented number of African-American voters who went to the polls to help elect the first Black president for Prop 8’s win. The power of African-American churches within those communities is great, and Leonard Pitts Jr., who wrote this piece for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette today, pleads with his community to remember back when the Whites helped Blacks gain their equality just a few short years ago and to not turn their back on the gay community.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

That’s for Marion Barry, who seems to need the reminder.

The former mayor and current city councilman of Washington, D.C. is a longtime supporter of gay rights. So observers were stunned last week when a bill committing the city to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere passed the council on a vote of 12-1.

The “one” was Mr. Barry.

Wait, it gets worse. Mr. Barry said his position hasn’t changed but warned that the council needs to move slowly on this issue. “All hell is going to break loose,” Mr. Barry said. “We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this.” Indeed, after the vote, a group of black ministers reportedly “stormed” the hallway outside the council chambers, vowing political reprisals.

Wanda Sykes at the Press Club

Carrie Prejean Runs Afoul the Pageant

Carrie Prejean, Miss USA California, who made headlines a couple weeks ago due to her response to idiot Perez Hilton’s question regarding gay marriage, has made headlines again.  This time, for possibly not being totally truthful (well, hell, let’s call it what it is – allegedly lying) with pageant officials regarding her semi-nude past.  Reportedly, once a semi-nude modeling shot from early in her career surfaced, pageant officials were concerned.  Now, according to thedirty.com, six shots have surfaced.  According to various sources, her contract specifically states she can not have appeared nude or semi-nude in the past.  Her defense was that she’s a model, and she modeled, semi-nude at age 17 like she shouldn’t somehow be responsible for her actions (not that I mind any semi-nude modeling of any kind).

Additionally, Prejean may have sunk her hopes of keeping her crown when additional indiscretions purportedly occurred -  among them, her affiliation and announcement that she is now a spokesperson for the pseudo-organization, the National Organization for Marriage.  She’s snuggled those conservative causes right up smack dab in the middle of her hot augmented breasts.  Apparently, the terms of her contract also seriously restrict her appearances to those preapproved by the directors of the pageant.

But, Prejean is still fighting – missing the point, as I fully expect conservatives and Christians opposed to gay marriage will probably miss – that she is allegedly violating the terms of her contract and she allegedly lied.  But, that’s secular law, right?  It doesn’t have any moral standing – or only when it’s convenient.  Perhaps her quest for fame knows no bounds.  Perhaps she’ll be willing to dump the entire Miss USA thing in favor of being the handmaiden of the religiously misguided.

A couple of questions – did her parents know about her semi-nude modeling gigs?  At 17, I would expect, as good parents, they’d want her to be a bit more circumspect.   If she did it anyway, should she be flogged for not honoring her mother and father?  Do you think that she might also have had premarital sex?  If so, should she be stoned?  I wonder if those types of revelations would somehow draw the outrage of the “moral” set?

Again, I draw your attention to Coaster Punchman’s eloquent, yet mercifully brief, analgous story  in support of gay marriage here.

A Funny Thing Happened…

There I was, writing my little bitchy post about Carrie Prejean and her ill-fated collision with Perez Hilton, who may have single-handedly galvanized the entire anti-gay movement with his stupid question at the Miss USA pageant a couple weeks ago, and this happened:

Yes, you read that right – somehow, this little tiny blog with neighborhood news and brief commentary on gay issues of the day has ended up on some search engine or another and has had nearly 50,000 hits today up ever-so-slightly from it’s usual 40 or 50–without all the 000’s on the end.   I had to shut comments off because those people seem to have a single argument, which is not supported by the secular nature of our Constitution.  Man, those straight people have a lot of spare time on their hands – surprising considering how so many of them seem to spend a lot of time trying to deny me rights.

Along with the increased traffic came some relatively level-headed comments of disagreement and a lot of the same mish-mash of conservative fundamentalist crap and an awful lot of  vile name-calling, profanity-laden, threatening diatribes–like being targeted by the KKK lurking behind keyboards and monitors instead of donning white robes.  Appears as though some of them are irate that we are 1) Being incredibly vocal in our fight for equality,  2) Are terrified that we might actually be succeeding;  3) Wish we would just go away/burn in hell/die a miserable death, and 4) Will bring down civilization as they know it.

I think Coaster Punchman said it best and I hope you will visit this post. It clearly illustrates the argument in a way I have before seen it presented.  If it gives even one “Ah, hah” moment to someone, I’ll be happy.

More on Prejean tomorrow.  Like how many people downloaded the bikini shot of her I posted – wonder what they did with that?

Maine Rocks

Governor John Baldacci of Maine wasted little time today in signing the same-sex marriage bill into law.  The bill also strikes down Maine’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) law.  Woot! Maine Rocks!