Gay

The crowd at the Morehouse College Commencement Ceremony over the weekend seemed momentarily stunned when Obama directed the gay men in the audience to be the best husband to their partners, but Obama held up one finger and stifled any dissent: And that’s what I’m asking all of you to do:  Keep setting an example for what it means to be a man.  Be the best husband to your wife, or you’re your boyfriend, or your partner.  Be the best father you can be to your children.  Because nothing is more important. Watch, AFTER THE JUMP... Shortly thereafter, Obama told the all-male African-American institution's 2013 grads to have empathy with other minority populations like Hispanic and Muslim Americans, and gays: But it is not just the African-American community that needs you. The country needs you. The world needs you. See, as Morehouse Men, many of you know what it’s like to be an outsider; to be marginalized; to feel the sting of discrimination. That’s an experience that so many other Americans share. Hispanic Americans know that feeling when someone asks where they come from or tells them to go back. Gay and lesbian Americans feel it when a stranger passes judgment on their parenting skills or the love they share. Muslim Americans feel it when they’re stared at with suspicion because of their faith. Any woman who knows the injustice of earning less pay for doing the same work – she sure feels it.So your experiences give you special insight that today’s leaders need. If you tap into that experience, it should endow you with empathy – the understanding of what it’s like to walk in somebody else’s shoes. It should give you an ability to connect. It should give you a sense of what it means to overcome barriers.

Last week, I posted about Damien Garcia, a trans male student at St. Pius High School in Albuquerque, New Mexico who is being forced to wear a girl's gown to the school's graduation. Modern Family actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson graduated from the same school, and is getting involved on Garcia's behalf. Writes Ferguson in a letter to the school posted on Facebook: I am writing to ask you to do the right thing and let all your students graduate with dignity. Do not force someone to dientify them self as someone they are not! Is is as ridiculous as having a priest conduct mass in a nuns havit! Gender identification goes way beyond a check mark on a birth certificate. I know St. Pius X  has changed a lot since I graduated in '94. I proud of the changes and strides you have made but this is not a time to hold to a rule book. Continue to grow and accept ALL of your students. A rally is being held this morning at the high school to support Garcia. An online petition has collected more than 24,000 signatures urging St. Pius to reconsider. The school says it will decide later today.

Jack Black and Kyle Gass delivered the weather forecast in New Zealand as only Tenacious D can deliver it, AFTER THE JUMP...

Anti-gay Pastor E.W. Jackson joined Ken Cuccinelli and Attorney General nominee Mark Obenshain on the Virginia Republican ticket over the weekend. Jackson told the Washington Post that he has never been hateful about homosexuality: “I think people always try to put that in the context of being hateful and it’s not,” he said. “It’s a particular worldview that every Christian for the most part who goes to church across this commonwealth shares: that marriage should be between one man and one woman. And anything else is an attempt to redefine an institution that really can’t be redefined. But I also like to let gay folks know that that same religious faith requires that you care about everybody, regardless. .?.?. It’s about religious principles, but never, ever about hatred or bigotry.” Jackson has linked homosexuality and pedophilia: "I know their people say, well, it’s unfair to associate homosexuality with pedophilia or some of these other previsions. But I believe that there is a direction connection because what they really want is absolute sexual freedom." Jackson has said gays are psychologically sick: "Their minds are perverted, they’re frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally and they see everything through the lens of homosexuality. When they talk about love they’re not talking about love, they’re talking about homosexual sex. So they can’t see clearly." He commented on the Democrats' embrace of marriage equality this way: Later this month when Democrats make same-sex marriage part of their official Party Platform, the former practicing attorney says they will be spitting in the face of every Bible-believing Christian in America: “They will be saying, 'We don't care what you think, what you believe, or what the Bible or the God of the Bible says. We know better than God.'” And he has said pro-gay rights liberals “have done more to kill black folks whom they claim so much to love than the Ku Klux Klan, lynching and slavery and Jim Crow ever did.”

This weekend the Virginia Republican Party officially nominated vicious anti-gay activist E.W. Jackson to be Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's running mate in the November gubernatorial race. Today Right Wing Watch posted a recap of statements by Jackson, many of which have appeared here on JMG over the last two years. RWW writer Brian Tashman:Jackson on gays and lesbians: Referred to gays and lesbians as “perverted,” “degenerate,” “spiritually darkened” and “frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally.” Said regarding homosexuality: “it poisons culture, it destroys families, it destroys societies; it brings the judgment of God unlike very few things that we can think of.” Argued that gays seek to “sexualize [children] at the earliest possible age” and use “totalitarian” tactics. Claimed gays are hurting black women: “I’ve heard a lot of young black ladies that a lot of young black men seem to be gay. I’ve heard them complain about it, they say ‘so many of these guys are homosexuals’ and they are frankly frustrated by it.” Demanded the reinstitution of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell : “The military has been decimated by this lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender policy that has now been implemented. It’s an abomination and it’s only going to weaken us militarily and they need to undo it,” warning that the policy’s repeal is a “disaster of historic proportions.” Contended that homosexuality is “killing black men by the thousands” and said of gay rights advocates: “what they’re promoting is killing people.” Called GLSEN founder and anti-bullying activist Kevin Jennings a “radical homosexual activist” who should have been “imprisoned” in a letter demanding he resign as head of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. Said there is a “direct connection” between gays and pedophilia.RELATED: Cuccinelli himself is a roiling cesspool of anti-gay animus. You may recall that recent he fought unsuccessfully to keep Virginia's ban on sodomy. In 2011 Cuccinelli ordered Virginia's Board Of Social Services to deny adoption rights to same-sex couples. That same year he fired an Atlanta law firm because it had refused to defend DOMA for the GOP. In 2010 he declared that "gays are a detriment to our culture." Defying long-standing tradition, Cuccinelli has refused to step down as attorney general during his run for governor.

(Via Memograph)

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"For years, those who are anti-gay have been emboldened by the often hateful declarations of homophobic religious leaders and by the attacks by groups like the National Organization for Marriage, which have demeaned gays. After decades of struggle, we're finally beating them back in the courts, in legislatures and even at the ballot box. And perhaps the frustration and anger by those who oppose us is now further empowering the thugs who take their hate and rage to the streets."We sometimes forget that getting laws passed and getting court rulings declared is, comparatively, the easy part -- as monumentally difficult as that has been and continues to be. One reason we in fact get the laws passed, in addition to protecting ourselves, is to change attitudes for future generations. But that part doesn't happen overnight and surely not without a backlash, which can sometimes be violent, as it has been in just about every other movement for equality. The hate is still out there and the haters are getting more desperate. Our worst enemies right now are complacency and the seductive message that we've 'arrived.'" - Michelangelo Signorile, responding to New York City's anti-gay hate crime spree in an essay for the Huffington Post.

Games of Bones: Brooklyn bar hosting competition to find NY's smallest 'scepter'While it's a pretty good guess that the New Yorker with the smallest penis would be a "Game of Thrones" fan, let's not rule out the guy who murdered a gay man in the Village Friday night. (Can inmates enter?)