live long enough to find the good one. protect yourself.

(click image to play – 03:00)
Everyone I’ve shown Wilfrid Brimo’s French public service cartoon on STD protection who has taken time to respond has done so with enthusiasm and usually with warmth. No French is required to enjoy it: the tagline is “Live long enough to find the good one. Protect yourself,” bracketing the name of the ad’s producer, AIDES (not AIDS in French, but “helpers”; they claim to be the oldest French organization devoted to combating HIV/AIDS). Here’s an English-end-titled version. The same production team also made a similarly structured predecessor to this film, aimed at young women.

credits (pdf)

check the local domestic dress code before making pancakes for your boyfriend’s son

Caren MacDonald testifies at her trial on felony charges of interfering with custody and a misdemeanor charge of violating a restraining order, following her abduction of her son from the custody of his father:

[T]he mother charged with snatching her 11-year-old son and fleeing the country told a judge Monday that she feared her gay ex-husband was trying to ”turn” their son gay….

[Caren] MacDonald…described for the jury how her son told her about a man in his father’s home cooking pancakes for breakfast while wearing pajamas.

At first, her son liked [his] father’s lover, Carlos Diaz, MacDonald testified. But she said that later, her son told her that he hated Diaz and that Diaz had massaged him on his buttocks several times…

[A] courtroom guardian for the boy in 2001 recommended that Diaz not have contact with the boy — but also suggested that the the boy spend more time with his father than with his mother.

Investigators could not substantiate her allegations, and…[c]ustody decisions continued to go in the boy’s father’s favor. A court-appointed psychologist described Caren MacDonald as ”mentally undone, delusional, bipolar, just about every mental illness in the book,” she said skeptically on the stand.

Ultimately, the judge ordered her to have no physical contact with her son….

The boy…testified last week that his mother forced him to lie about being molested because she felt it was unfair that he lived with his dad. He said the only touching involved a shoulder rub he asked for from his dad’s partner.

reported by Amy Sherman in the Miami Herald

gay and black history books burned – well, at least scorched – in Chicago

The Chicago Tribune reports on library arson:

Chicago police are investigating a fire in a Chicago Public Library branch on the North Side that damaged about 100 books, most of them in the gay and lesbian collection….[Library spokeswoman Maggie] Killackey said fire damaged about 10 books in the branch’s African-American history collection and 90 books in the gay and lesbian collection.

The Wikipedia article on book burning includes Heinrich Heine’s 1821 observation that “Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings”, and a photo from the infamous Nazi book burning of May 10, 1933 – which another article reminds us was fueled primarily (and I’m afraid we must say not coincidentally) by the library of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Research on Sexuality.

Bill Frist sends out a semiotically suspect invitation

He’s a Senator. He’s an MD. He’s a demagogue. He’s a medical missionary and a hospital profiteer. And he always has his intrusive fingers on the pulse of America. See what happens when Bill Frist ventures into the wild and wacky world of gay semiotics.

Al Kamen reports in The Washington Post:

It was with some trepidation that we opened a most interesting card, which announced on a blue-jeaned cowboy’s belt buckle something called the “5th Annual VOLPAC ‘06 Weekend” in Nashville on April 21-23.

Problem was you had to unbuckle the cowboy’s pants and look inside to see what this was all about. Seemed a bit too “Brokeback Mountain.”

Imagine our relief to find only that we were “cordially invited” to the event honoring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and “Mrs. Bill Frist, M.D.” This is Frist’s political action committee to raise money for other senators, making friends and positioning him nicely for his 2008 presidential bid.
….
The back of the card shows the cowboy from behind with a red flowered handkerchief sticking out of his right pocket. Wait a minute — wasn’t there something about how this used to be some kind of code in the gay community years ago? A way to signal each other in crowded, noisy bars?

So we checked the GayCityUSA.com’s Hanky Codes. Sure enough, there it was in the chart explaining what they mean: red hanky in right pocket. Oh, dear.

Keith Boykin: Mary [Cheney] had a little scam, a letter to mom, black clergy for prejudice

At the risk of giving Mary Cheney more attention than she deserves, I pass along Keith Boykin’s comments on her memoir and her career. Boykin’s perceptive and eclectic site covers books, movies, music, pop culture, sexuality, spirituality/religion, sports, and theater. He writes and publishes effectively and affectingly on the dilemmas facing queer African Americans.

Incidentally, the source links for the “Black Clergy for Prejudice” cartoon by Don Asmussen that Boykin excerpts take you to the current strip. The excerpted one is archived here.

in memory of Ahmed Khalil, murdered at 14 by Iraqi police for accusations of gay sex

I have to admit I’d kept the case of a brutal murder of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi boy – one of many out of the carnage in Iraq – out of my mind and my heart until I stumbled across an impassioned (and occasionally politically incorrect) reflection on the crime by Brandon K. Thorp at Mogenic (excerpted below):

But if we don’t intend to chop the balls off the evil men of the world and stick them on an island where they won’t shoot anymore children, we had better start getting serious about some of our other options.

Here’s one: When you have children, and your children ask you about the Will of God, do not lie to them. Don’t tell them that you know, because you don’t. Even if you think you know, you have no way of knowing that you know, and you shouldn’t try to pretend otherwise. When your children ask you about the Will of God, tell them this: “Nobody knows, and anyone who claims to know the Will of God is a Nazi, and likely to murder children. If anyone ever tells you they know the Will of God, run away. People who think they know the Will of God are the most dangerous people in the world.”

Jerome Taylor’s reporting on the case in The Independent may be found at Common Dreams.
edit: Brandon K. Thorp’s commentary is apparently no longer available online.

“Youth in the Crosshairs: the Third Wave of Ex-Gay Activism” targets children as young as 5 years old

Whether through ex-gay teen programs or traveling ex-gay conferences like Focus on the Family’s Love Won Out ex-gay programs are recommending that parents commit their children to treatment of “prehomosexuality” even if it is against their children’s wishes. Heterosexual youth are also being recruited in schools and churches to spread the message that homosexuality is a treatable mental illness.“One of the most disturbing accounts in this report is a case involving a 5-year-old boy who was subjected to conversion therapy to address ‘prehomosexuality.’ The case involves a psychologist who claims that his theories and treatments are scientific,” said study co-author Jason Cianciotto, the [National Gay and Lesbian Task Force] Policy Institute’s research director. “To the contrary, conversion therapy is opposed by nearly every medical and mental health professional association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics….Tragically, ex-gay and evangelical Christian right leaders are using bogus theories and discredited research to frighten parents into doing something more likely to harm than help their children.”

The Policy Institute’s full report (78 pages not including the back matter and including a nine-page “executive summary”) is downloadable as a PDF. The same page also offers an mp3 version. For a shorter summary, see the Institute’s press release, quoted above (emphasis added).

war on gay marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships imperils legal protections for abused women

During the 2004 presidential elections, 11 states put same-sex marriage amendment bans on their ballots, including Ohio, where registered voters ultimately decided to alter their state’s constitution. By endorsing the Defense of Marriage Act, Ohio took a clear stance against legalized civil unions and domestic partner benefits for same sex-couples. [The Ohio amendment] was sold overwhelmingly to voters as pertaining only to same-sex marriage. As Ohio has quickly learned, however, bans that are meant for limiting one specific act can have spillover effects that reach far beyond the intended target.Ohio’s ban went on to forbid government bodies from recognizing the legal status of any unmarried couples living together, which has caused a sticky quagmire for judges trying domestic abuse cases.

[emphases added]

For more on how the attack on gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships is impeding the ability of domestic abuse victims – mostly women in heterosexual relationships – from seeking protection by the courts, see the rest of Larissa Theodore’s article in the Beaver County Times & Allegheny Times: “Ohio marriage law created legal quagmire” (02/13/2006).

suffer the little children: no baptism if parents are gay

A Roman Catholic cardinal says children of gay parents cannot be baptized.

OK, it seems to me that the mind of anyone who is at all familiar with the gospels turns immediately to:
————
And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and [his] disciples rebuked those that brought [them]. But when Jesus saw [it], he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.
(Mark 10:13-15)
————
Well, looks like some of today’s would-be disciples are still in the rebuking business.

“Suffer the little children”, indeed! “Forbid them not”…unless you don’t like what their parents are doing or saying.

Best to all,
M.

p.s. As you might suppose, in general I would oppose infant baptism in the first place. But practically speaking, having been raised Catholic, I know that if any of these kids are allowed into Catholic schools, their not being baptized will just be one more damn thing they shouldn’t have to deal with.

Zach’s father speaks out

Well, damned if I ever thought I’d post a link to the Christian Broadcasting Network, but Joe Stark, father of Zach (yes, that’s his real name, apparently), is defending his parental choices there.

Best to all,
M.

man beats 3-year-old son to death because “he might be gay”

Thought Toddler Gay, Dad Kills Son
by Fidel Ortega 365Gay.com Miami Bureau
Posted: July 14, 2005 12:01 am ET
©365Gay.com 2005

(Tampa, Florida) A 21 year old Tampa man is charged with murder after his 3-year old son was pummeled into unconsciousness and then died.

Ronnie Paris Jr. went on trial for his own life this week in a Tampa courtroom. The toddler’s mother, Nysheerah Paris, testified that her husband thought the boy might be gay and would force him to box.

Nysheerah Paris told the court that Paris would make the boy fight with him, slapping the child in the head until he cried or wet himself. She said that on one occasion Paris slammed the child against a wall because he was vomiting.

The court was told there had been a history of abuse by Paris. Prosecutor Jalal Harb said that in 2002, the Florida Department of Children & Families placed the child in protective custody after he had been admitted to the hospital several times for vomiting.

He was returned to his parents Dec. 14. A month later he went into a coma and was rushed to hospital. Six days later he was removed from life support and died. An autopsy showed there was swelling on both sides of his brain.

“He was trying to teach him how to fight,” Nysheerah Paris’ sister, Shanita Powell told the court. “He was concerned that the child might be gay.”

Following the child’s death Tampa police Detective Anthony Zambito thought there was something suspicious. He testified that he questioned both parents closely at the hospital. But it wasn’t until investigators questioned them separately Feb. 1 that the boy’s mother talked about the abuse.

Paris was charged with capital murder and Nysheerah Paris was charged with felony child neglect and faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.

edit, 7/15/05: The trial was short, and Ronnie Paris, Jr., was convicted of second-degree murder.

a broadside for “Zach”

The protest around these sexual suppression programs for teens, as galvanized and personified by “Zach”, continues in the vein of charmingly naive.

Best to all,
M.

“I would rather you commit suicide”: brainwashing gay teenagers (2)

I’ve been following the story of “Zach”, a gay teenager in Memphis whose parents have put him into a program that’s supposed to turn him straight, or desexualize him, or something. (Typically such programs hold out the promise of “converting” from homosexuality; typically their effect, if any, is simply to suppress someone’s sexuality entirely.)

The latest news, as reported at washingtonblade.com is that Tennessee Child Services is looking into (at least) licensing issues connected with the “Love in Action/Refuge” program, in the face of allegations of child (emotional) abuse following Zach’s blog entries as he faced going into the program.

Best to all,
M.