Straight, Married, Republican MS Assistant Principal Arrested as Pedophile

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Jacob Flores

Patrick Lott, Assistant Principal for Bernardsville Middle School in New Jersey, was arrested last week for allegedly filming boys while showering in the locker room of Immaculata High School, as reported by Unicorn Booty.

Apparently, “videos of nude teenagers were found in his Somerville home,” which was searched after a student filed a complaint against Lott. Once authorities entered his residence, they found more than three years worth of video footage of boys, nine of who were under the age of 16. When police officials searched Immaculata HS, they found the surveillance equipment used to spy on and record the children.

Lott, a Republican, straight, and happily married man, who once ran for political office in his county now awaits his day in court to answer for his alleged crimes.

Some of you may be wondering why I am posting about this disgusting news event. I do so to point out that Lott is a straight man, married with children. Many anti-gay individuals love to say that pedophiles are gay men and that same sex couples will destroy the values of traditional marriage. I wonder how the actions of this straight, married, Republican work into that rhetoric?

Santorum Surges to Third Place, Promises to Annul Gay Marriages

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Jacob Flores

Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has risen to third place in Iowa polls. Now with 16% of the projected votes, which is a far cry of where he was previously, Santorum’s surge in Iowa has me deeply concerned.

First of all, I think he’s an idiot as I’ve claimed here, here, and here, but I’m concerned for more than just his lack of an intelligent quotient. Santorum has recently courted several “evangelical leaders within [Iowa]” and is using the standard hot topics of same sex marriage, abortion, and the threat of Islam to garner favor with the 99 counties in Iowa.

Santorum isn’t dealing with important issues such as the economic crisis, health care, education, and rising unemployment. Instead, he has stoked the flames of fear many social conservatives have–that the gays will destroy traditional marriage, babies will be haphazardly aborted, and that Islam will take over our borders.

While I would normally scoff at platforms such as this, Santorum appears to be stirring up the pot enough in Iowa to rise in the polls. His tactic of fear and ignorance is working!

Santorum still has a lot of ground to cover to take over Romney and Paul, who are currently tied for first, but he’s gaining some steam.

If he does win the nomination, he not only plans to repeal DADT but to annul gay marriages that are currently legal in some states. ThinkProgress reported on this as well as on an interview between MSNBC’s Chuck Todd and Santorum on the subject of gay marriage. During the interview Santorum had this to say, “I think marriage has to be one thing for everybody. We can’t have 50 different marriage laws in this country, you have to have one marriage law.” When asked if he would make same-sex couples, who were currently married according to their state’s laws, get divorced, he responded by saying, “their marriage would be invalid.”

I wonder what happened to the GOP’s desire to limit the role of the federal government in a person’s private life and for acknowledging the rights of the states? I guess Santorum doesn’t buy into those Republican tenets, does he?

NC Family Values Organization: Gays Murder Marriage

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Jacob Flores

As I’ve posted before, the battle for marriage equality is heating up in North Carolina. A state constitutional amendment defining marriage is slated for the polls in May, state senators are now backpedaling from the wording of the bill they helped create, and even a North Carolina Baptist Church is standing up for gay marriage.

Proponents of marriage inequality, however, are launching their assaults against gay marriage, as reported by Queerty.

The North Carolina Family Policy Council, a self-professed “defender of traditional marriage” (as worded on their website), has published its quarterly publication titled Family North Carolina that “doesn’t just single out the gays as murderers of traditional marriages. It singles out the gays and everyone who supports them!”

The bride and groom caught in the crosshairs, which is the featured image for this post, is the image the NCFPC is using in their publication. Apparently, according to the NCFPC, anyone who favors equality is attempting to murder the rights of “traditional” people everywhere. What people like the NCFPC fail to see is that the people in the crosshairs are those who are being discriminated against!

Think about it. In the 1960’s when civil rights for African Americans were at the forefront of this nation’s civil liberties fight, who was really in the cross hairs? The white majority who felt their rights were being infringed upon or the African Americans who were being discriminated against?

How to Explain Gay Rights to an Idiot

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Jacob Flores

The above is from the following link. I couldn’t have said this any better!

Tweeting Ignorance: Ron Paul’s Newsletters

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Jacob Flores

Don’t you just love it when someone makes broad generalizations about a community based upon the actions of a few? I had hoped Ron Paul would prove better than that, even though I knew better. Perhaps it’s his recent rise in the polls, with only a few points separating him from Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, but it seems Paul is falling in step with bad mouthing the gay community just like his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls.

Sigh.

(story via Towleroad)

Chicago Cardinal Compares Gay Pride Parade to KKK

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Jacob Flores

This year, the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago was rerouted, and the new route happens to pass in front of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. This has caused much consternation for the church who fears that they will not be able to have mass that Sunday because the parade will interfere with their services.

The pastor expressed his concern to Catholic Cardinal Francis George, who made the following comments, as reported by ThinkProgress:

Well, I go with the pastor. I mean, he’s telling us that they won’t be able to have Church services on Sunday, if that’s the case. You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism. So, I think if that’s what’s happening, and I don’t know that it is, but I would respect the local pastor’s, you know, position on that. Then I think that’s a matter of concern for all of us.”

Cardinal George has just shown what an idiot he is. To compare a celebration of gay pride to a Klu Klux Klan parade is not only revolting but maddening. The KKK is a bigoted, hate mongering group who used to revel in their parade of men dressed in white sheets. Their parades were about lynching minorities. Their parades were designed to instill fear and spread hate. Their parades included violence and cross burning.

Gay pride parades are about celebration, about being accepted for who you are, and about not being afraid to celebrate being gay. I see no comparison between a gay pride parade and the KKK.

Cardinal George apparently doesn’t agree. Either that, or he just doesn’t get it. The Chicago Gay Pride Parade isn’t a march against Catholicism. In fact, when Chicago’s LGBT community learned about the pastor’s concerns, they met with him and arranged to start the parade at a later time to give the congregation of Our Lady of Mount Carmel the time they needed to worship. If the parade was truly some secret march against Catholicism, they wouldn’t have done that.

Of course, the Holy Cardinal is trying to eat his words now saying, “Obviously, it’s absurd to say the gay and lesbian community are the Ku Klux Klan, but if you organize a parade that looks like parades that we’ve had in our past because it stops us from worshipping God, well then that’s the comparison, but it’s not with people and people — it’s parade-parade.”

Sorry, Cardinal George, you can’t take back your hateful words, and your attempt is weak at best.

And there are some out there who are calling for action. Change.org, an online organization that mobilizes petitions for change, is calling for George’s resignation. Also Equally Blessed, a pro-LGBT rights Catholic organization, stated that George “has demeaned and demonized LGBT people in a manner unworthy of his office. In suggesting that the Catholic hierarchy has reason to fear LGBT people in the same way that blacks, Jews, Catholics and other minorities had reason to fear the murderous nightriders of the Ku Klux Klan, he has insulted the memory of the victims of the Klan’s violence and brutality.”

Thankfully, George is facing the consequences of his actions. Perhaps, the good Cardinal needs to learn a lesson in prudence. I’m sure the Bible has something to teach about that.

DADT Repeal: One Year Later

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Jacob Flores

It’s been a year since President Obama officially signed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and guess what? The world hasn’t ended. Terrorists haven’t taken over America. Soldiers aren’t being harassed in the showers. Battle-ready effectiveness hasn’t decreased.

In fact, as reported by ThinkProgress, “leaders who opposed the change are embracing it and gay servicemembers are reporting acceptance within the ranks.”

It seems that many politicians and nay-sayers didn’t have faith in the men and women who serve our country. I guess they incorrectly assumed that our soldiers were just as bigoted as they were. Epic fail for them!

NBC Nightly News also did a piece on the DADT repeal last night. Based on the video, I say our soldiers are thriving.

In New Hampshire: Marriage Equality Advocates Fight Back

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Jacob Flores

Yesterday, I posted about the ads currently being circulated in New Hampshire by conservatives who are trying to repeal the marriage equality law in their state. Click here to read that post.

Today, marriage equality advocates, Standing Up for New Hampshire Families, have released their own video asking New Hampshire voters not to take away the right to marriage equality.

As they say in the video, “Freedom is for everyone. Every. Single. Person.”

New Hampshire Anti-Gay Marriage Ads: Gay Families Are Trash

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Jacob Flores

The fight is underway in New Hampshire to repeal the marriage equality law. You may remember that I posted how the New Hampshire House Judiciary Committee voted to repeal the law back in October.

Well, according to ThinkProgress, conservatives who favor the repeal of the law have begun their advertising campaign in ernest. A website has been set up that displays banners depicting homosexuals as “trashing” traditional values.

As you can see from the banner I’ve shared, stereotypes of gay men as hedonistic, scantily clad, dress wearing degenerates are juxtaposed next to a picture-perfect heterosexual family.

I won’t deny the evidence in those pictures. There are some gay men who are indeed hedonistic, who enjoy showing lots of skin, and who dress in drag, but does that make all gay men trashy?

Let’s take a look at a different juxtaposition of pictures, and you tell me.

A picture perfect gay male couple with 2 children

Heterosexual couple promoting "traditional" values?

Scantily clad (AKA naked) future heterosexual moms

Traditional grandma and grandpa with granddaughter ready for church?

As these pictures no doubt prove, gay men aren’t the only segment of society capable of hedonism, exhibitionism, or skirting “traditional” family values. The proof is in the pudding, New Hampshire conservatives (and elsewhere). As a human race, we are all capable of letting our hair down and having fun, but that doesn’t negate our basic civil rights to live our lives with the partner of our choosing.

So, those who think gays are trashy, get off your soapbox and take a look at what heterosexuals are capable of. We aren’t perfect, and neither are you.

Assault Charges Dropped Against Sequoyah HS Principal

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Jacob Flores

Charged against Sequoyah HS principal Maurice Moser in Tennessee have been dropped, as reported in Queerty.

You may remember my previous post about Moser, who assaulted a student for wearing a shirt in support of starting a GSA on his high school campus. Click here to read the post.

The presiding judge dismissed the case, and as of now, justification for why the case was dismissed has not been released. According to local affiliate WBIR, “An assault charge had also been filed against the student, but it was dropped when Moser agreed not to prosecute.”

I don’t know about you, but I smell a rat (or at least some behind closed doors deals). There were witnesses, relatives of the student and another teacher, who observed Moser’s behavior, yet the charges have been dropped and a threatened counter-suit by the principal against the student has also gone away.

Even though the students at Sequoyah HS have won the right to wear GSA shirts (which I posted about here), this doesn’t feel like a victory to me. I hope the ACLU is still watching this case.