Real Christians Are Not Bigots

May 11, 2012 by Leave a comment

If any Christian churches in Albuquerque or Santa Fe want to put up a billboard something like this one by a church in San Diego (maybe excluding the odd “Christianity for All” coda, as my friend Kevin points out), I will make a contribution to make it happen. I encourage my friends, Christian or not, in other states, to make the same offer.
 There are lots of bigots who clothe their bigotry in Christian  makeup. I know many Christians, and hardly a one of them is bigoted. It seems the only ones we hear about on TV or in the news are of the gay-bashing, Koran-burning, funeral-desecrating variety. If there is a war on Christianity, it is this: that the most despicable people who self-identify as Christians are the only ones who get media attention. Fred Phelps has a church that consists almost exclusively of members of his own family. The Koran burner has a church of, I think, 12 members. They get all the media attention they want.
What about the nuns Nicholas Kristof wrote about this week, or the missionaries he’s written about before, who do some of the most caring work in the most dangerous circumstances? What about the Protest Chaplains who have offered counsel during the Occupations in Boston and New York City? Well, they don’t spend a lot of time on PR. Phelps, et al, are mean-spirited attention addicts. The media gives it to them.
It’s time to remember that Christians have founded hospitals, that Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy were  Christians. That Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian. They set the standards. Let’s dust them off and shine them up again. The Christians I know should be proud of who they are and the communities they have made and strengthened. They are not bigots. They are not pro-ignorance, anti-science. Those who are Republicans are not the caricature of Republicans that the Tea Partiers have made of the party – a caricature that my father, a lifelong Republican, would never recognize. The Christians I know are more concerned with being a light and a comfort in the world than they are with being a power in the world.
I will go a step further than my original offer. I am going to seek out churches that feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the outcasts, here in Santa Fe and in Albuquerque. I’m going to suggest that they, perhaps in concert with other churches (and perhaps also synagogues and mosques and temples) they know, put up a billboard like the one above, and I will promise to raise some of the funds to make that happen. Again, I encourage you to do the same in your home towns.

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Dear North Carolina

May 10, 2012 by Leave a comment

So you have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Have you considered defining “man” and “woman”?

After all, there are many varieties of gender, not just the two. There are the common XX and XY types. BUt I am told that there are also XXY, XXXY, Y with mutated X, and X with mutated Y, the intersexed, the transgendered and, I am sure, more.

So why stop at defining marriage? Think of the government jobs that could be created by requiring blood tests AND chromosomal and genital exams for every marriage license. For those of indeterminate gender, some kind of panel will have to be formed, to see what gender category the person fits in and whether they can be permitted to love someone who is not their exact opposite in chromosomal distribution.

Really, it’s just like miscegenation: once you say “white” and “black” don’t mix, you’re in a pickle. Who, exactly, is white, and who, exactly, is black? Some definitions really are useless for any but the most academic use, and applying them to law just makes life and governing more difficult.

You think you have settled the matter, NC. But your work has just begun.

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Equal Rights

May 10, 2012 by Leave a comment

Newark Mayor Cory Booker is right on, in his conversation with Rachel Maddow. All of these issues are about equal rights – not gay rights, immigrant rights, women’s rights. Equal rights. Framing it that way makes all of these groups allies, and makes each group’s case stronger.
An Equal Rights Amendment would benefit everyone.
Please share.

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President Obama Endorses Same Sex Marriage

May 9, 2012 by Leave a comment

President Obama, by endorsing same sex marriage today, spanks North Carolina the day after a large majority of its voters limited its own citizens’ civil rights.

Will the DNC follow Obama’s lead and move the Dem Convention out of Charlotte? Would they hold their convention there if NC had just voted to reinforce segregation?

The last time Dems had their convention in Charlotte, in 1860, they nominated Stephen Douglas. Who ran against Abraham Lincoln. We know how that worked out.

Democrats: Endorse Love, and Leave Charlotte. If you want to share that sentiment with the party, there is a petition here.

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Celebrating Love, Because We Have No Surplus

April 27, 2012 by Leave a comment

Worth re-posting from time to time.

Do we have such a surplus of love in the world that we should put a lid on it when it is found?

This video moves me every time. Not because of the cause it represents. But because it shows that rare thing, a relationship that begins, and builds, and gets to the point where both parties realize that what they have is not from some Hollywood fantasy, but is real and worth committing to, for better or worse. What is worth spending your whole life on? What an amazing experience, to have someone decide that you, of all the wonderful things in the world, are the one thing to which they wish to commit their lives and energies, and to feel the same about them.

This video shows a basic human experience, like a meal with good friends, like pulling off the road to watch a sunset, like being sick and scared, like taking pleasure in a good book or movie. Like being born. Like dying. Except this is love, which makes all the others better.

There is nothing to fear here, and so much to celebrate. Please share. Again.

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Finally, A Tiny Speck Of Justice: Spanish Nun Maria Gomez Valbuena Charged In Baby-Stealing Operation, Refuses To Testify

April 16, 2012 by Leave a comment

In a small news story, the Huffington Post reports on the case involving some 300,000 stolen babies. This is big news in other countries, but here in the US, it’s not exactly front page news.

MADRID — An 80-year-old Spanish nun has refused to testify at a court hearing about her alleged involvement in the stealing of newborn babies from their parents and selling them to other families.

Spanish police have investigated hundreds of cases amid allegations of baby trafficking dating from the years after Spain’s 1936-39 civil war and supposedly a few even in the mid-1990s.

Authorities were alerted by an association of people searching for lost relatives. The group alleges the scheme involved a nationwide network, including doctors, nurses, midwives, nuns and intermediaries. Mothers were told their babies had been stillborn.

Sister Maria Gomez is the only person subpoenaed so far. She appeared in court Thursday and told the judge she would exercise her right to remain silent.

Reuters reports that Sister Maria Gomez is charged with “illegal detention and falsifying documents.”

According to Newser, one mother of a stolen infant alleges that Sister Maria Gomez also threatened to steal her other child.

Spanish nun Maria Gomez Valbuena (C) leaves a court in Madrid on April 12, 2012, after refusing to testify before the judge for her alleged involvement in a case of stolen children. (PEDRO ARMESTRE/AFP/Getty Images)

“Stop asking me [where the baby is] or else I will also take away your other daughter and you will go to jail for adultery,” the mother claims Sister Maria Gomez said.

The BBC explains that thousands of babies are thought to have been stolen under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship with the aim of removing children from their “undesirable” left-wing parents and placing them under the care of “approved” right-wing families.

via Spanish Nun Maria Gomez Valbuena Charged In Baby-Stealing Operation.

We’re talking about a baby-stealing operation that continued into the 90′s. Priests, nuns and doctors were involved. One nun has been found to have over a million dollars in her bank account.

The people running the operation told the parents their baby was dead, that they couldn’t see the body, and sold the baby to paying customers. They then falsified all the documents.

I find these crimes so heinous, so offensive and reprehensible, that for the life of me I cannot fathom why it is not front page news around the globe.

300,000 children. It will be hard to follow the trail, since all the facts have been covered up, but just imagine what it would be like to find out you had been one of these babies. You were stolen from your mother and sold to the people you thought were your parents. The people you know as your parents bought you from a baby stealing operation.

In the case of single mothers, that would make at least 600,000 people whose lives have been forever altered beyond belief. If you include the parents who bought the children – who may not have known they were complicit – that would make around 1,200,000 people affected. And once again, the horror is laid at the feet of the Catholic church.

Will the church demand justice for the victims? Will the vast wealth and resources of the Catholic hierarchy be used to help those harmed, bring families back together, and see that justice be done to all those responsible? Not bloody likely. The pattern they have followed for hundreds and hundreds of years is to cover up, to deny, and to protect the wealth and power of the church at all costs.  And it costs the victims of their crimes most.

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The Do's and Don'ts of Being a Good Ally

April 10, 2012 by Leave a comment

Reblogged from Esoterica:

1. Don’t derail a discussion. Even if it makes you personally uncomfortable to discuss X issue…it’s really not about you or your comfort. It’s about X issue, and you are absolutely free to not engage rather than try to keep other people from continuing their conversation.

2. Do read links/books referenced in discussions. Again, even if the things being said make you uncomfortable, part of being a good ally is not looking for someone to provide a 101 class midstream.

Read more… 463 more words

Outstanding. This is an excellent reminder of most of the mistakes I'm ashamed to admit I've made myself. Sometimes being a good ally means leaving the safe space to the people you are supporting.

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Survey Says: Homophobic? Hate Gays? Here’s Your Closet

April 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

A new survey shows if you’re strongly homophobic, you might be a redneck gay.

Or both. Imagine the irony, and the fear of being found out. I first began to see it in the Navy. I noticed that the really homophobic men (for instance the ones afraid of gays looking at them in the shower) were afraid of something more than just someone they though was “abnormal”. They were afraid of being attacked, but not because of a real threat. I began to see there real fear: if a gay man came on to them, they might not be able to say no. So they try to prove they don’t have any tendencies by being loudly anti-gay. And t’s not just effeminate guys like Marcus Bachman, it’s also tough jocks who bully the gay kids in high school. And later in church.

So most people in the GLBT community and I have long assumed that if you hate one, you might be one, or at least are afraid of being somewhere higher up the Kinsey scale. Several studies have already shown the correlation, and here’s more definitive proof:

I’ve been saying it for years. Glad I lived long enough to see study after study back me up:

Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates.

The study is the first to document the role that both parenting and sexual orientation play in the formation of intense and visceral fear of homosexuals, including self-reported homophobic attitudes, discriminatory bias, implicit hostility towards gays, and endorsement of anti-gay policies. Conducted by a team from the University of Rochester, the University of Essex, England, and the University of California in Santa Barbara, the research will be published the April issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

“Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves,” explains Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex and the study’s lead author.

“In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward.”

The paper includes four separate experiments, conducted in the United States and Germany, with each study involving an average of 160 college students. The findings provide new empirical evidence to support the psychoanalytic theory that the fear, anxiety, and aversion that some seemingly heterosexual people hold toward gays and lesbians can grow out of their own repressed same-sex desires, Ryan says.

Dan Savage makes it clear:

So don’t be homophobic, homophobes, because people might think you’re gay. And if you really don’t want people to think you’re gay, being supportive of gay rights and comfortable with gay people is way better cover than screaming and yelling about the evils of homosexuality. Just sayin’.

via Seattle Columns – Savage Love – Dan Savage – The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

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Let the 99% Spring Bloom

April 9, 2012 by 2 Comments


Thought I would let you know, if you didn’t already, and ask you to spread the word, that there are trainings in nonviolent direct action all across America from today through Saturday. See the link below for times and places. There will be a number of actions taking place here in Santa Fe, around New Mexico and across the country shortly thereafter. For example,

April 22 is Earth Day. I haven’t heard of specific actions, but they may already be being planned.
April 28 is the March Against the War on Women, in every state capitol
May 1 is the Nationwide General Strike
May 5 is the 350.org action, Connecting the Dots

I have heard of plans to protest the media and corporations later on. We’re getting the ball rolling
The full training lasts 7 hours. (MoveOn is providing a 3 hour version in some places.) I took it a couple of weeks back, when being trained ro train others. It is informative and revelatory, especially for the historically well-behaved, like me. Participants will learn some of the history and effectiveness of nonviolent action, a bit about how our economy got into its current shape, and have opportunities to share and hear the stories of others who are adversely affected by the way things are.

One of the things I like about it is that it builds capacity in people without being prescriptive. There are 60 organizations involved, each with different, albeit overlapping, priorities. This is a truly collaborative effort, and each locale has the freedom and responsibility to use what they learn as they see fit. It is also designed to highlight the resources of those with a history of experience in direct action: there is no assumption that 99 Spring knows best, or that everyone is a beginner. They know that there are community resources ready to lead and educate; 99 Spring provides a context for that to begin.

Our situation is dire, as everyone knows, economically, socially, and environmentally. Let’s get this party started, shall we?


Info on 99% Spring: www.the99Spring.com
Training in Santa Fe: http://moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=128899&id=

Thanks, neighbors. Remember: “People should not fear their governments; governments should fear their people.”

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Victory in Vegas

April 5, 2012 by Leave a comment

Remember  the video I posted by Thomas Linzey, who talked about how to circumscribe the power of corporations in our communities? Well, we have another victory to celebrate, this time in Las Vegas, New Mexico. As an article in the Las Vegas Optic explains,

The ordinance seeks to elevate the civil rights of the community and of its natural resources while limiting the rights currently enjoyed by corporations.

 As you might expect,

Moments after the vote, as jubilant backers of the controversial measure were celebrating, the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association notified the city attorney that it would be filing suit over the matter.

 Of course they would. This is a HUGE deal and a great precedent – which is why the  industry plans to sue, using the court system over which, through their influence on the legislature, they exert significant control (Who writes regulations these days? The industries to be regulated.). They are not done trying to overturn the will of a community which they have not been able to control or buy off. Please put this on your radar.
These entities are powerful. We should use every weapon at our disposal to reclaim our right to self-determination and to protect the future for our children and the world in which they will live. They write the rules, and insist that we play by them. Refuse. Change the game to one that they can’t win. The people do not exist for corporations; corporations exist for the people. Corporations and their representatives have forgotten that. Let us remind them.

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