You can purchase an autographed copy of Anything But Straight by sending a $35 check or money order to:
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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
DignityUSA will sponsor a series of public events andwitnesses during Pope Benedict XVI's pastoral visit to the United States April 15-20. Events will be held in both Washington, D.C. and New York City.
"All of our events are planned to be peaceful, prayerful and positive," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, DignityUSA's executive director. "At the same time, we need to recognize the damage that this Pope's attacks on our community have caused countless individuals and families. We witness ontheir behalf."
10 Comments:
Wayne you managed to make this post without your typical venom towards Christians. Thank you :)
posted by D, at
4/04/2008 1:56 PM
David,
Wayne is not anti-Christain. He's anti idiot; anti extremist; anti hypocracy. If you take offense at his taking to task So-called Christians who would seek to deny us rights, I'm sorry you feel that way. As a gay Christian man, I have never felt offended by any thing Wayne has exposed about the so-called Christians he brings out. I take no offense because I know what a real Christian is and they are not it.
posted by Anonymous, at
4/04/2008 7:09 PM
Mr. Malcolm:
I never say anything negative about mainstream Christians. I do have a few things to say about:
1) Hate-mongering bigots who want to deny GLBT people equality. 2) Self-righteous hypocrites - who preach against sex, while they live their lives like a third-rate porn. 3) Buffoons: Such as right wing Christians who think Sponge-Bob and Tinky Winky are gay.
I find it sad that you identify with these types of people - and actually call it religion. It is people like you who wrongly equate Christianity with bigots, hypocrites and buffoons that have venom towards the religion - not me.
posted by Wayne Besen, at
4/04/2008 7:26 PM
Wayne don't you know that trying to stop people from infringing on other people's rights infringes on their right to infringe on other people's rights?
The RC church can never admit they are wrong about anything! Those protesters are wasting their time (but I'd protest anyway). RC gays should join the Episcopal church (not perfect but making progress), or the United Church of Christ (totally gay inclusive). If you dont want to lose the traditional rituals and great Renaissance choral music, try the Anglo-Catholic branch of the Episcopal Church.
posted by Anonymous, at
4/05/2008 10:23 AM
The Pope will be greeted by protestors when he visits Ground Zero, where the first official casualty of the 9/11 attacks was Father Mychal Judge, the openly gay FDNY chaplain known as “the Saint of 9/11”.
Mychal, whom many considered a living saint even prior to his heroic death, often asked, “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love ?!”
We have no illusions that this pope is going to change. Rather, we are bearing witness to two truths -- that God created and loves gay people, and that the pope does not speak for the whole Church, the Ecclesia, all the people of God.
These truths are being increasingly embraced by Catholics in-the-pews. Fully two-thirds of U.S. Catholics reject the pope’s homophoblic views and support either civil unions or full marriage rights, according to numerous surveys.
Like Fr. Mychal also said, "Don't let the (institutional) church get in the way of your relationship with God."
Considering his history in the HitlerJugend and his rancid reactionary politics Ratzinger makes an excellent spokesmodel for all the Roman cult stands for. The catholic cult is based on an amalgam of superstitious mystery cults that emerged during the degenerate period of Roman culture. During the Dark Ages they morphed into a rapacious, bloodthirsty organization hell bent on accumulating wealth and power. Catholic cult leaders were the mainstay of the retrograde and devolutionary trends of feudalism. They organized the mass murders of jews, muslims, cathars, schismatics, heretics, GLBT folks, midwives, the poor, rebels and anyone who got in their way.
Have they changed? Not significantly. They are still the same organization governed by the same howling superstitions. However the liberal use of the guillotine as a cure for clerical treason during the French Revolution and similar efforts in other nations since then has taught them to be circumspect.
But not always. While little Ratzinger was goosestepping his way into the HitlerJugend and industriously trying to shoot down Allied aircraft as a Luftwaffe flak gunner his papal predecessor Eugene Pacelli, aka Pius XII, was praising Hitler’s war on communism and pigheadedly refusing to speak out about the Holocaust. (They like to give themselves names like Pius, for the same reason that George would like to be called Bush the Smart.) Later Pacelli’s Vatican government played a central role in the escape of large numbers of Nazi war criminals, and were no doubt well paid for it.
We are born gay, lesbian, transgendered. We are not born superstitious. That is a lifestyle choice, a learned behavior. Catholic and other cultists ought to think long and hard about the political and historic reality of their cult and do what they can to wean themselves from it. You can change, they won’t change.
