Just to confirm what I wrote recently about the continued parental rights of the Heene family in Colorado (“Balloon Boy Family”) — now comes news that a rap video has been uncovered where the boys in this family rap about the “pussification” of America.

SheWired.com – ‘Balloon Boy’ and Brothers Perform Offensive, Anti-Gay Rap.

Pretty interesting stuff going on over at NOH8Campaign.com. The pictures tell an amazing story and give hope to those who desperately need their full rights.

Get out the message!

I often find it humorous, if not a little disturbing, watching the reaction of others when it comes to news reports covering certain events. Last week we were all inundated with news coverage around the little boy who rode a helium balloon across the skies of the Denver area. Only to be told later that it was a hoax.

Fine Example of Parenting

And I wonder why it is that no one is speaking out to place this couples children in protective custody. Why is it acceptable for this couple to maintain their parental rights when they have clearly endangered the psyche of their children? Yet it is acceptable to reduce the rights of so many based solely on their sexual orientation.

If a gay couple had carried out a hoax like this couple in Colorado did with an adopted child, the news media and right-wing bigots would have spent the entire weekend talking about the very reason why gay people should not be allowed to marry or adopt children. I know plenty of gay people who would make wonderful parents. Not because they are gay, but because they are have a tremendous amount of unadulterated love to give each other and their families. But because they do not love who or what the Bible tells them to, they are banished to the sidelines and repressed by the masses in state after state.

I contend that there is a bigger issue at play today in America. The issue is one of racial, sexual and religious superiority, that is unlike anything we have ever seen in this country and possibly the world.

Another recent event is an interracial couple in Louisiana that wanted to get married. The Justice of the Peace refused to marry the couple because he has concerns about their offspring, and the fact that he does not believe interracial marriages work. This is 2009, some 45 years after Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill. So one lone JP in Louisiana determines what is and is not acceptable based on some guided notion that he is far more wise than any law?

Louisiana Couple

The truth of the matter is that the JP in Louisiana is simply following some prescribed notion that he has received divine direction to honor nature’s wishes. I suspect that if we peer inside many of our political institutions, or churches, or schools, or places of employment — we will find many more people that subscribe to the same notion.

And that is the duplicitous nature of our society. We allow people to thumb their noses as people who are different from what they have been programmed to believe is right, while excusing those who clearly don’t know right from wrong, and never understanding that there is a difference.

A science research project in England has come under a storm of criticism for trying to determine the physiological reasons why roughly eight percent of male sheep prefer the company of other male sheep. Many can infer from this research that scientists are attempting to understand where homosexuality occurs in the brain, making it easier to predict markers of gay tendencies, and possibly develop a treatment for the disorder — in sheep.

Many have inferred from the project that scientists would like to eventually eliminate gay sheep all together, with further speculation that any treatments for sheep could eventually be developed for humans. The lead scientist has been quick to point out that homosexuality in the human brain is far more complex than that for sheep, and that any “treatment” for humans is highly unlikely.

What enrages me about this story is that the project is being funded by the National Institutes of Health, a federally funded entity. What possible benefit is there to this nation or the world in eliminating gay sheep? Does the NIH not have more important scientific research to fund? Have we cured Cancer, Alzheimer’s, AIDS or Lou Gerigh’s disease yet? No.

To me, it proves that this goverment (run by Republicans for the last 12 years) is out to define homosexuality as a disorder, and to further control nature to please the delicate sensitivities of small minded individuals who are threatened by the mere existance of homosexuals. Perhaps the NIH should be more concerned with solving issues related to ignorance in this country, first.

Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida) resigned from his seat today following allegations of misconduct and inappropriate communication with a minor male intern that worked in his office in Washington. This story is getting wide “exposure” all over the Internet, with Americablog.com having screen shots of some explicit emails sent to the young intern.

Foley denies that his resignation has anything to do with the allegations.  But considering this quote from ABC News:

A spokesman for Foley, the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, said the congressman submitted his resignation in a letter late this afternoon to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

So, the theocon’s sent a representative to Congress, gave him an important comittee chair position, and he used his power to talk dirty to a young intern?

Well, apparently, there is more. Check out this quote from the Stop Sex Predators blog from at least one different intern (I say this because the intern in the ABC piece is a minor and the author of this letter makes reference to college):

THIRD EMAIL
From: repub intern
Mailed-By: hotmail.com
To: stopsexpredators@gmail.com
Date: Sep 18, 2006 2:07 PM
Subject: CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION!!!
Reply Reply to all Forward Print Add sender to Contacts list Delete
this message Report phishing Show original Message text garbled?

My dad who gives a lot of money to republicans got me an internship capitolhill. I thought that I was hot shit, having such a good internship after myfreshman year of college.After a few weeks, I was finally learning my way around DC and I wasenjoying my job.One night, I decided to go out with my new fake ID to my first gay bar.I went to this bar named Coblot.There was old guy who would not leave me alone. He kept following me around.I tried to get him to leave me alone by going to the bathroom.Instead he followed me in and tried to grope me.A few days later my boss had me run something over to another congressmansoffice. It turned out that the guy who groped me was Representative MarkFoley.

So the very people who want to deny LGBT rights on issues such as partner benefits and marriage are trolling DC gay bars. Oh! What a tangled web indeed!

Do you remember what you were doing in the summer of 2001? More importantly, do you remember what your President and his Congress were doing in the summer of 2001? I do.

Just a few short weeks before 9/11 our President was perched at his Crawford, Texas ranch enjoying a very long vacation (5 weeks if I remember correctly). His attention was focused on the moral dilemma of stem cell research and how he could use the Christian cloth he had wrapped himself in to suppress promising research for curing diseases. This topic was so important that he took time away from chopping wood and barbecuing to address the nation in primetime.

If the Bush administration was so focused on terrorists (namely al Qaeda) why did he never once speak to the American people about the problem? After all, Bush knew that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in the Fall of 2000. Why did he not go on national television to the tell the American people that he knew who attacked our service men and women? Why did the President not speak directly and openly to the American people and our enemies alike and say that the United States was not going to take it and that he would develop a master plan for eliminating terror from the face of the Earth? Why was Bush and Company not more proactive in their approach to the war on terror?

This is the kind of questioning that conspiracy theorists love to hear, because it is so easy to say that the President wanted to be attacked. Personally, I just think the President was distracted with giving tax breaks to the most wealthy and in becoming our moral leader on deeply personal issues and that he simply could not be bothered with the big picture.

Five plus years is a long time ago for some of us. Perhaps our memories have been clouded over with more recent events. So I ask then, what were the Republicans (Bush and Company) concerned with in the Spring of 2005? Was it the war in Iraq? Was it Afghanistan? Osama bin Laden? Was it on protecting our borders? Was it beefing up security on freight shipments and cargo ships that enter our ports everyday? The answer is no. The Republicans were worried about the obviously brain-dead Terri Schiavo and having her feeding tube removed. They [Republicans] simply could not stand to have a moral and personal decision go with intervening by creating bogus laws for one specific case. Once again the GOP decided to wrap itself in the Christian cloth of morality in hopes of undermining the personal freedoms and personal relationship between an individual choice and their belief system.

How is that related to the war on terror? Does this demonstrate that the Republicans are the party of protecting the American people? Again, no. But as long as the “war on terror” is being fought, the Republicans know that they have a banner to wave that proclaims them as the gladiators that are going to save us all.

In 2004 the GOP pulled out all of the stops and forced the same-sex marriage debate front and center for the general election. The plan was to stir fear that the American family was somehow threatened by two loving people sharing in the same rights (not privileges, but rights) as everyone else. The summer of 2006 started out the same way. The GOP was down in the polls and it needed a boost, so twice the House of Representatives passed bills to amend the Constitution to ensure that same-sex couples never receive any rights at all, and twice the Senate rejected the same initiative. When that didn’t work, the GOP turned to protecting our borders. The President even went before the nation on primetime (something he likes to do for political reasons and seldom out of the collective interest of the citizenry) to spell out his plan for protecting the border with Mexico and to lay out his plans for immigration. But in the spirit of true Republicanism, the House has spent the entire summer touring the country talking about the issue but doing little else. Now there isn’t enough time to act on any legislation, so Congress has delayed the vote until after the election.

How is any of this serving the needs of this country in the war on terror? The Republicans are not about protecting anyone but themselves and their financial supporters. Good people with good common sense and the ability to think critically should remember all of this as they head to the polls in November.

According to a piece in the Houston Chronicle today, less than 125 donors account for 40% of all money raised in the Texas governor’s race so far, with those contributions ranging between $50,000 and $850,000. This astonishing figure highlights how influential just a few people are how only the rich get a chance to control elections and what legislative agendas are set.  Who stands to gain the most from these contributions? 

The governor [Rick Perry] has raised nearly $13 million over the past two years. About one-third of that came from 75 donors who gave $50,000 or more. This year’s legislative and gubernatorial elections in Texas are pivotal for the average Texan, simply because so much is at stake when it comes to healthcare, product and company liability, and property rights as they relate to land-grabs for the TransTexas Corridor highway. For the GLBT community, this election is critical since same-sex couples wishing to adopt children will most likely see their rights stripped further in the next legislative session. Who stands to profit the most from this agenda? Fewer than 125 people apparently. 

Chris Bell, the Democratic candidate for governor has raised a paltry $2 million with seven individuals or committees accounting for roughly one-third of that amount. (Naturally democrats represent the forgotten who can barely afford to buy gas and groceries, so contributing to the expensive political process is out of the question.)