It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for the Republican party in the run-up to 2012. First, the party had a literal embarrassment of riches, in the form of a field chock-full of candidates with something for just about every major faction and minor fringe the GOP has cobbled into a conservative coalition. Then, dragged through a series of debates in which the only thing more embarrassing than the candidates was the audience, the candidates who were bona fide right-wing stars, wilted under hot lights of ever intensifying media and public scrutiny.
Inevitably, the field narrowed. Herman Cain went home to (finally) spend more time with his family. Michelle Bachmann has been asked to drop out — again. Rick Perry is still around, but merely provides comic relief at this point. Yet that hasn’t improved the field. Even Newt Gingrich’s ironic return to relevance as the Republicans’ savior seems to be winding down. Meanwhile, the all important Iowa Caucuses loom. And all eyes turn to Ron Paul — the GOP’s own Mad Doctor.
It’s rare that two very public implosions occur almost simultaneously or resonate so well with one another as the the crashing and burning of Herman Cain’s presidential campaign and Eddie Long’s marriage and ministry. It’s even rarer that two high profile “players” like Cain and Long (or Long and Cain, or even Long/Cain, if you prefer) have the bluffs called so spectacularly and fold so publicly.
Some of the parallels between the two are innocuous: both are black ministers, both are from Georgia, both have amassed significant amounts of personal wealth. Other parallels are innocuous: both, if the allegations against them are true, rose to fame pretending to be something they were not, and both were publicly revealed as frauds.
Ironically, in the long run, neither may suffer much for it.
This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Eddie Long
Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light
~ “Run On (For A Long Time)”
The last line in the quote above is one my mother repeated often when I was growing up. She meant that those things we tried to hide, out of shame or deceit, would be found out eventually. Thus, it behooved us to live honest lives, with nothing “done in the dark” that we feared would come into the light.
Spencer LaGrande, 22, filed suit against Long and his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and, like the other three alleged victims, accused the powerhouse pastor of forcing him into a sexual relationship while treating him to trips around the world, travel in private planes and stays in luxury hotels.
…LaGrande’s lawsuit alleges he met Long in March 2003 during the very first service at a branch Long’s Georgia-based church that opened in a suburb of Charlotte, N.C.
LeGrande said Long agreed to be a father figure for him because his own father was an absentee father, according to court documents, and that Long began asking LaGrande to call him “dad.”
LaGrande was 17 when, according to the lawsuit, Long first made sexual contact with him during a trip to Nairobi, Kenya. The lawsuit alleges several more instances of sexual contact, both before and after LaGrande graduated from high school.
Long’s accusers have said they believe the bishop abused more young men that eventually will come forward. Many people at the church knew what was going on but covered for Long, victims claimed.
Maurice Robinson and Anthony Flagg were the first two accusers, followed a short time later by Jamal Parris.
Parris alleged in the documents, obtained by ABC News, that the bishop would request he be nude while in his presence and would request “sexual massages” and “oral sodomy” when they traveled.
Eddie Long would probably say that my life — a suburban life, with a husband and two children — is one lived in darkness. He would probably invite me to live in the “light.” That is, the “light” as he defines it.
It’s been a while since I’ve added to this series. There are probably a number of reasons, among them that I’ve found myself blogging more about other issues and less about LGBT issues. There are any nmber of reasons, including that my writing at work tends to bleed over to this blog because I have less time to write these days to my interest in what’s happening on the national political scene. But I’ve been keeping up with the latest chapter of the abuse scandal swirling in the Catholic church in the past weeks. And found myself thinking more and more about this series.
Besides the Catholic church scandal, there’s the news of the Boy Scouts covering up abuse. I find it, if nothing else, noteworthy that two organizations that have gone to some lengrhs to defend their anit-gay policies and that have inveighed against families like mine have the same problems with child sex abuse, and the same penchant for covering it up — or, rather, keeping it in the closet.
The circus sideshow that was CPAC folded its tent and left Washington weeks ago. However, its apparent ringmaster and chief snake oil salesman still sweats, struts, and sobs across the “stage” of conservative media — that medicine show never stops rolling and never stops hawking its “solutions” to Americans who are in desperate need of something to ease their economic aches and pains, and heal their political maladies.
And like the medicine shows of old, Glenn Beck — and others like him — peddle magical “miracle cures” that either poison directly by filling the body politic with toxic bile, or indirectly by distracting us from actual solutions, and aren’t intended to “cure what ails us” so much as to make us think that we feel better even as the illness progresses. Case in point is Beck’s latest attack on the very idea of social justice.
Forget WWJD. The new question is apparently What Would MLK Do? A coalition of politically and theologically conservative Christian leaders, including nine Roman Catholic bishops, who have just signed a declaration saying they will not comply with laws that could require them to recognize same-sex unions or allow their institutions to support abortions are arguing that the move is of a piece with King’s call for civil disobedience during the civil rights movement.
The declaration reads, in part: “We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other antilife act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent.”
Instead of debating whether these causes belong in the same category as providing equal rights and treatment to racial minorities, the better question may be: Why now?After all, most people agree with the first part of the statement and believe religious institutions and individuals should be protected by conscience provisions that protect them from being compelled to participate in acts like abortion that they believe are murder. And, in fact, they are.
Fine. But if you’re gonna talk that talk, you gotta walk that walk. (more…)
The first time I heard it, I did a double-take, because I thought I heard it wrong. The second time I heard it, I rolled my eyes. The third time I heard Sarah Palin, in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, suggest that women who choose to terminate pregnancies are essentially “taking the easy way out.”
As a former Sunday School teacher, I’ve often looked at the antics of today’s religious conservatives as they wave the Bible around and pound others over the head with it and wondered: Have they actually read that thing? Because I couldn’t see how they could reconcile their politics if they had.
Well, apparently, they read it and didn’t like everything they read. So, they’ve decided to change it, rather than change themselves.
It’s a day most progressives never thought they’d see, but here it is: according to a group of conservatives, the Bible has become too liberal. And, naturally, this same group has taken it upon themselves to edit it.
Though the site itself is currently not working for us, conservative writer Ron Dreher at Beliefnet notes that they’ve come up with ten guidelines to which a “fully conservative translation” of the Bible should adhere. They are as follows:
Let me explain it this way. When I first came to D.C. to work in politics, and to work specifically on gay rights issues, I was told and came to understand that people fall into three categories when you’re working for social change:
1. The people who are on your side.
2. The people who aren’t on your side, but could be if they’re persuaded.
3. The people who are not on your side and never will be.
The first group you need to talk to in order to keep them informed and motivated. The second group you need to talk to in order to make your case and move them to your side. Talking to the third group is a waste of time and energy better spent shoring up support in the first group and winning support in the second group.
Some people are unreachable. The problem is they say things that must not go unchallenged.
I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but I just love Jon Stewart too. Here’s a man who really gets it. From his recent interview with Mike Huckabee. (Favorite line: “At what age did you choose not to be gay?”)
I can tell you, though, after marriage the right will come after our families next. What some people don’t know is that there’s an undercurrent of anti-adoption sentiment in the movement against marriage equality.
Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.
But Ernest Michel, honorary chairman of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors, said that is not enough. At a news conference in New York City on Monday, he said the church also must “implement a mechanism to undo what you have done.”
“Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable,” said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.
Hey California, these are the people who decide your policy. Or the people you let drive your policy. Good luck with that. Really.
Ed. Note: I plan on writing something about black voters, the passage of proposition 8 in California, and the discussion that has ensued about whether the former failed in part because of the latter. In the meantime, I thought I’d republish some old content that might be relevant to the discussion.
(Originally posted on March 19, 2007.)
More homophobic than whom? More homophobic than whites? More homophobic than the general population? Or all of the above?
One of the things I wanted to blog about last week, but didn’t get a chance to was this Alternet post featuring video from the National Black Justice Foundation’s 2nd Annual Black Church Summit, in which Michael Eric Dyson addresses the question that’s been on my mind a lot in as I’ve been reading stuff online lately: “Why are black people so homophobic?”
Pam supplied the video as part of her excellent coverage of the summit. I was invited to cover the summit, but due to family responsibilities was unable to make it. So, I particularly appreciated Pam’s coverage, and will return later to some things she addressed.
Every time a Tim Hardaway or an Isaiah Washington or an unknown black preacher makes an anti-gay comment, reporters call me up and ask why are black people so homophobic. But when high-profile white people make homophobic remarks, nobody ever asks why are white people so homophobic. They should, because the answers to the two questions are related. African Americans are homophobic because white Americans are homophobic. We all live in the same homophobic society, and in this case the prejudice starts from the president on down.
I understand where Keith is coming from, but for a while now I’ve not been willing to defend African Americans anymore against charges of being more homophobic than other groups. I know it’s controversial to say that black people are more homophobic than other people, but my personal experience has been that most black people are more homophobic than are most white people I’ve encountered, and defnitely more homophobic as a group than is the general population. I still haven’t seen or experience much that’s convinced me otherwise.
The truth is that Obama in Ohio spoke the language of American democracy, which has always included a perception that wealth is a form of power, and that stupendous inequalities of wealth produce an undemocratic inequality of power. His questioner, angry in anticipation that he could not hold onto all of the $300,000 he might hypothetically earn in a year, spoke the language of righteous self-interest; and he cited as his irrefutable authority “the American dream.” If I follow that dream, said the Joe of today, hoarding the wealth of the Joe of tomorrow, why should I ever pay a higher tax?
Obama’s answer was simple and Christian. Once you have been helped by a tax break to prosper and to grow relatively rich, it seems fair to give others lower down the ladder the same chance that once helped you.
You’d think so. But once again, depending on how you you believe faith and finance relate to one another.
Before I launch into this post, let me just be clear about one thing. I’m not sure of much anymore. But I am fairly certain that I shouldn’t be writing this, or much of anything having to do with politics these days. For starters, I’m not that relevant as a voter. Based on everything I’ve read, seen, and heard, as black gay male, a member of the upper middle class, a college-educated white collar worker, and a non-Christian and non-theist, who doesn’t reside in a southern state, a rust-belt state, a battle-ground state, a small town or a rural area, and someone far enough to the left to be out of the mainstream much of the time, I am one of the most irrelevant, least important voters in this election.
I am also not a “real American” living in the “real America.” At best, I am an “ersatz American.” (The use of the word “ersatz” automatically disqualifies me as a “real American.)”
But this is something I — and the rest of the country — already know and have known for a while.
Want to blame someone for the financial mess we’re in? Well, join the club and get in line. Folks on the right are hell bent on blaming blacks. And if that doesn’t work, they can always blame gays for our economic downturn. (Okay, okay! I confess already. it’s all my fault. I’m not sure how I did it, and I don’t know what I did with the $1 trillion that’s likely to be the total we’re in the hole.)
Christian fundamentalists are suggesting gays and lesbians are to blame for Wall Street’s woes, a frequently made charge in the wake of national calamities.
In a September 25th blog post titled ‘The Nation Will Right Itself If It Fixes Sex’, Christian Civil League of Maine Executive Director Michael Heath writes that the financial crisis facing Wall Street is a symptom of America’s sinful sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay unions.
“Our crisis is a symptom, not the cause,” writes Michael Heath. “I am not saying I know whether this financial crisis is God’s judgment or not. It is not for me to know that definitively.”
Heath goes on to list policy changes that would make God “crack a smile,” including: End abortion rights and defund non-profit groups supporting it, amend state constitutions to ban gay marriage and eliminate domestic partnerships and civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and end discrimination against private religious schools and homeschools.
A related post by Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian at the National Review’s website pushes a similar theme, this time focusing on Friday’s failure of WaMu.
Krikorian suggests the big bank failed because it was too accommodating to minorities, including gays, African-Americans and Hispanics.
In his September 26th post titled ‘Cause and Effect?’, Krikorian writes, “I really thought this was a joke, but it’s not. WaMu’s final press release, before it sank beneath the waves.”
I’ve heard some people suggest — in response to the above — that if Jesus did have something to say about this mess, he’d probably take a swipe at the “moneychangers” again, and repeat the parable about the rich man, the camel, and the eye of the needle. Jesus would run the moneychangers out of the temple, and denounce the worship of wealth, right?
In her first public statement since Palin was named the GOP vice-presidential candidate, Mary Ellen Baker said today, “I simply do not recall a conversation with specific titles,” Baker told ABCNews.com.
Palin has acknowledged she twice raised the issue in 1996 of how books could be removed from the shelves, but said it was only a “rhetorical question” and that she did not ask for any books to be banned.
Palin’s church at the time, the Assembly of God, had been pushing for the removal a book called “Pastor, I Am Gay” from local bookstores, according to the book’s author Pastor Howard Bess, of the Church of the Covenant in nearby Palmer, Alaska.
“And she was one of them,” said Bess, “this whole thing of controlling information, censorship, that’s part of the scene,” said Bess.
Here’s where I’m confused. How does This add up to being “inclusive”? OK, she has “gay friends” but doesn’t want “gay books” in the library? And did she have “gay friends” when she was mayor? Did they say anything to her about this? Do Republicans’ “gay friends” ever say anything to them about stuff like this?
If so, it apparently doesn’t do any good. (That the books weren’t banned says more about the character librarian and the integrity of the process than about how much of either quality Palin possesses.) And if not, why not?
It’s not something I haven’t to do, in the past few years, as much as I used to. And with two kids I have even less time for it. But, always the enthusiast, I keep up with news, and I know pretty early when the next big new thing is coming out. I start counting the days up to a year in advance, buy it as soon as its available, take it home and spend hours playing around with it, figuring it out, and just immersing myself in it.
That was the case with The Sims, and that’s been the case with Spore. Well sort of.
The first was one of my favorite songs, from which I borrowed the title of this post. The second was a book I read a few years ago that actually makes it hard for me to answer “yes” to the question in the poll.
OK. I plead guilty to this When I got my iPhone 4, I gave Parker my old iPhone 3G (with parental controls in place, phone service deactivated, everything restored to factory settings, history wiped clean, and internet access and the App Store on lockdown) to play games on, etc. But does that make me a “Scrooge”? Puh-leeze. An eight-year-old needs the latest iPhone?
It’s happening again. I’m getting that “I’ve got a book in me, if I can make time to write it,” feeling. Of course, that “if” is the big, and the deciding, factor.
It’s not that I don’t trust the guy, and maybe the whole Weinergate thing has me a little gun shy, but am I the only who thinks Obama tweeting for himself may not be the best idea?
It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for the Republican party in the run-up to 2012. First, the party had a literal embarrassment of riches, in the form of a field chock-full of candidates with something for just about every major faction and minor fringe the GOP has cobbled into a conservative coalition. Then, dragged through a series of debates in which the only thing more embarrassing than the candidates was the audience, the candidates who were bona fide right-wing stars, wilted under hot lights of ever intensifying media and public scrutiny.
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