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Wayne Besen
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Eight of ten Americans feel the country's moral values are getting worse - a record high for the annual Gallup survey since it began in 2002. According to the poll of 1,002 adults conducted May 8-11 and released yesterday, 81 percent of adults say the nation's "state of moral values" is getting worse, compared to only 11 percent who say values are improving.
The latest figure marks a jump of 14 points since 2002 and a four point jump since 2005. The negative outlook on morality since 2002 took the greatest jump among independents (at 18 points) and Republicans (16 points). The change among Democrats was relatively low at 6 points.
Isn't it amazing that after two terms of Bush and right wing Republicans running the nation, people think our morals are in the toilet. Thanks "values voters" for your "moral" leadership.
The poll also revealed that Amricans are a bunch of double-talking hypocrites. According to the results, 53 percent of Democrats said homosexuality is morally acceptable, only 36 percent of Republicans said the same. In regards to divorce, 71 percent of Democrats viewed it as morally acceptable while 59 percent of Republicans said the same. Some 65 percent of Democrats approved sex between an unmarried man and woman, compared to 50 percent of Republicans. Also, 57 percent of Democrats approved of having a baby outside of marriage, while 43 percent of Republicans felt the same.
Amazing, but in Bible-Belt states we see more divorces and children born out of wedlock. If these Republicans think this is so wrong, why do they keep repeatedly engaging in such behavior?
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The long-term affects of steroids are obviously kicking in. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly will veto a bill passed by the Senate and pending in the Assembly to revise California's school curriculum to include the contributions of gays and lesbians to the state and nation, a gubernatorial spokesman said Wednesday.
"The governor believes that school curriculum should include all important historical figures, regardless of orientation," said Schwarzenegger's director of communications, Adam Mendelsohn. "However, he does not support the Legislature micromanaging curriculum."
So, Schwarzenegger basically wants to keep gay historical figures in the closet. This is an age where gay children are more likely to commit suicide, thanks, in part, to the governor's party, which keeps telling these kids that they are worthless sinners.
These children should know that people just like them have made tremendous contributions to the world. Their straight peers should learn that gay people are not a recent political phenomenon, but some of the most successful and meaningful contributors to world history. Only such information can break down stereotypes and lead to greater understanding. The governor is making a grave mistake that will hurt all students in California who deserve an honest education, not one whitewashed by the California GOP.
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So, the truth is finally coming out. Dick Cheney is responsible for the outing of Valerie Plame, the CIA spy. Any thinking person, however, already knew that Scooter Libby was not some Lone Ranger acting on his own accord. His powerful boss, Dick Cheney, gave the marching orders to commit arguably treasonous acts.
According to The Washington Post, Cheney was personally angered by a former U.S. ambassador's newspaper column attacking a key rationale for the war in Iraq and repeatedly directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then his chief of staff, to "get all the facts out" related to the critique, according to excerpts from Libby's 2004 grand jury testimony released late yesterday by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
Libby also told the grand jury that Cheney raised as an issue that the former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA and that she allegedly played a role in sending him to investigate the Iraqi government's interest in acquiring nuclear weapons materials. That issue formed the basis of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's published critique.
Dick Cheney has consistently wrapped himself in the flag and used patriotism for partisan advantage, while commiting unpatriotic acts when it suited his agenda. Upset that his propaganda for war was unravelling, he knee-capped a U.S. spy. For such a despicable act he should step down before the prosecutor's noose forces him to do so.
I watched a special on reparative therapy on CNN's Paula Zahn last night. It showed disgraced therapist Richard Cohen petting and cuddling with a patient in a "non-sexual" way. It also showed him fervently banging a tennis raquet against a pillow while screaming his mother's name with disgust and contempt. He was basically using the pillow as a proxy to murder or maim his mother. I've never seen anything so disturbing in my life. He looked entirely psychotic and should be locked in a padded room in a mental ward.
In the shadow of Mary Cheney's apologist memoir, "Now It's My Turn," comes an apology from former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey in his new book "The Confession." With Mary receiving a mllion dollars for her "tell nothing" and McGreevey receiving a half million for his "tell-all," it has suddenly become quite lucrative to announce one's homosexuality. Perhaps, next year's National Coming Out Day should be held in a bank?
Cynicism aside, McGreevey's book is a tome that hits home with an agonizing and gut-wrenching portrayal of life in the closet. It is an invaluable resource because it vividly points out that living a lie is not only self-destructive, but also ruins the lives of people sucked into the sham. As a result of McGreevey's deception, two wives were left without a husband and two children were left in broken homes. I guess this is another rousing success story for the "family values" crowd that continues to create mixed orientation marriages that are surely doomed to fail.
McGreevey's book is helpful because it underscores that sexuality is not a frivolous lifestyle choice and it also helps dispel the tired myth that people can "overcome" their same-sex attractions though prayer or willpower. Indeed, McGreevey read the script and acted the heterosexual part with the best of them. Like the "ex-gay" ministries of the Christian Right, he practiced behavior modification and role-playing.
"I studied the moves, figured out what worked and what didn't, practiced and perfected my perfect authenticity."
Part of his self-help "therapy" included ogling Playboy centerfolds, prayer, and reading psychology books. When the psychobabble didn't work, McGreevey turned to the "all you need is a good woman approach -- or, in his case, women.
"As the years went on," McGreevey wrote, "I became as avid a womanizer as anybody else on the New Jersey political scene. But my attraction was largely artificial, my sexual performance a triumph of mind over matter."
Sadly, right wing groups spend millions of dollars to trap people in false and empty existences. The "ex-gay" group Exodus International, for example, has twelve full-time employees who share the goal of reprogramming people to live duplicitous lives, much like McGreevey's. They even have seminars to train people how to walk, talk and act so they can appear heterosexual.
The problem is, even if a person changes outward behavior, it does not change who they are inside. The dissonance created by what is in one's heart and the nonsense that these groups funnel into one's heads can lead to pathological behavior. In great detail, McGreevey discusses how his efforts to change led to a seedy double life.
"As glorious and meaningful as it would have been to have a loving and sound sexual experience with another man, I knew I'd have to undo my happiness step-by-step as I began chasing my dream of a public career and the kind of 'acceptable' life that went with it. So, instead, I settled for the detached anonymity of bookstores and rest stops - a compromise, but one that was wholly unfulfilling and morally unsatisfactory."
McGreevey underscores how conservatives are largely responsible for the very existence of the "gay lifestyle" they disingenuously claim they abhor. But, just as their efforts to ban contraception cause more abortions, the right's efforts to turn gay people straight has kept the adult bookstores in business. In essence, Focus on the Family indirectly subsidizes gay porn palaces and bathhouses.
On Amazon.com, "The Confession" is coupled with "Brokeback Mountain," offering a one-two punch to the closet. Taken together, no thoughtful person could conclude that it is healthy or desirable to pressure people into mixed orientation marriages.
It would have been preferable if James McGreevey had come out without a cloud of scandal hanging over his head. It is still unfathomable that he appointed his one-time boyfriend Golan Cipal to a job that dealt with national security following 9-11.
Still, in a counter-intuitive way, the dishonor of McGreevey's resignation was helpful in revealing the full ugliness of the closet and the sick ways repression manifests itself. With "The Confession" McGreevey is getting a second chance to show that living in his own truth offers a personal power that surpasses even that of sitting in the governor's mansion.
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A restaurant in Maryland has caused an uproar with a sign of the times, which reads: "No Coloreds, Fags or Bikers."
Well, this is what you get when you have right wing groups spending millions of dollars to scapegoat people. If we are as terrible as their propaganda suggests, no wonder a few hateful hicks don't want to eat with us. After 6 years of the Bush Administration setting back the clock, is it any wonder that the 21st Century is looking more like the 1950s?
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