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31 May 2010

Disturbing short documentary about the English Defence League

The Guardian has a short 12m documentary about the racist, violent, and virulently islamophobic English Defense League. Filmed mostly undercover, it traces the rise of the EDL which was formed only nine months ago and has already become the most significant far-right British street movement since the National Front.

Watch it HERE.

bigots | politics
Comments 1

26 May 2010

Priest advocates burning gays at the stake. And right wing nut claims Hitler and his top brass were all gay because straights weren't "savage" enough

Via Towleroad, two utterly contemptible and totally depressing videos for you.

In the first, a Polish priest (or certainly dressed as one) speaks to reporters in Krakow and, condemns gays as  diseased "faggots" and hopes society returns to burning them at the stake.

In the second video, a right wing nut from the well known American Family Association speaking on his own radio show claims:

"So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn't the Germans, didn't the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Brownshirts, were male homosexuals."

religion poisons everything | world | bigots
Comments 0

05 May 2010

"If you oppose gay marriage, you are a bigot"

From BigThink:

By definition, bigots are people with unshakable baseless prejudices. There is absolutely no reason, besides blind prejudice, to deny same sex couples the right to civil marriage.

You can use religious language to express your belief that gays and lesbians are disgusting second class citizens unworthy of rights that heterosexuals take for granted, but it doesn't make your position any less bigoted. Logically, there is no reason to put same-sex relationships on a lesser legal footing than opposite sex unions, unless you think there's something wrong with them.

You can insist you don't wish gay people any harm. Perhaps not. But there were lots of pro-segregationists who didn't wish ill upon black people, but still didn't want to drink out of the same fountains. They too were bigots.

You can point out that discrimination against gays and lesbians is a longstanding tradition, but that doesn't excuse your bigotry. If anything, it makes it worse. It was one thing to fear what the expansion of gay rights might do when gays and lesbians had no rights. Today we're decades into gay liberation and none of the dire predictions have come true. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are at least as healthy and well-adjusted as those raised by opposite sex parents-and no more likely to self-identify as gay.

Read the rest.

marriage equality | bigots
Comments 3

05 May 2010

This is "Lucien" the "luggage lifter"

As you can imagine, the American gay blogs are all over the story I posted yesterday, about the anti-gay preacher who was discovered holidaying with a rent boy he found on the internet. The preacher claimed the guy was simply helping him carry his luggage on the trip!

Towelroad and Joe.My.God have lots more on the story including the ad that caught the preacher's eye:

"Massage, good times, Travel, escort for days, nights and weekends, My name's Geo. 20 year old, 5'9'', 130 pounds, 28'' waist size,8x6" UNCUT, VERSATILE, NICE ASS. Puerto Rican, fair/light-Skin, blond hair, blue eyes and athletic/muscular built. I'm a college guy, masculine, educated, really easy-going, great to get along with, can hold a conversation and passionate You could just say I love to have a good time. Very clean, professional, HIV and Disease FREE. For a sensual meet or companionship. Will do anything you say as long as you ask ;D Repeat encounters are always more exciting for me and make it more casual and comfortable for you as well. Call or text anytime."

And the preacher's first response, which is lengthy, but includes lots of this kind of thing:

"Contrary to false gossip, innuendo, and slander about me, I do not in any way "hate" homosexuals, but I seek to lovingly share two types of messages to them, as I did with the young man called 'Lucien' in the news story: [1] It is possible to cease homosexual practices to avoid the unacceptable health risks associated with that behavior, and [2] the most important decision one can make is to establish a relationship with God for all eternity by trusting in Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, including homosexual sins. If you talk with my travel assistant that the story called 'Lucien,' you will find I spent a great deal of time sharing scientific information on the desirability of abandoning homosexual intercourse, and I shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him in great detail."

scandal | religion poisons everything | bigots
Comments 1

27 Apr 2010

Despite all appearances, this is not a parody

This is the British National Party's actual party political broadcast. No really. It is. Even though I know that Nick Griffin doesn't have a sense of humor about these things, I still kept half expecting to see Ali G or Sharon Horgan pop up and shout "Bloody foreigners!".

Keep your eyes peeled around the 3:40 mark. When he says "Labour" he actually makes a wanking gesture!

Like me, at the beginning, you were probably wondering, "What the Hell is the Marmite bottle doing there?!! Are Marmite sponsoring the BNP?!!". Well, no, they're not. And Marmite's parent company Unilever are not amused.

politics | britain | bigots
Comments 6

23 Apr 2010

Brenda Power really has a bee in her bonnet about me it would appear

GCN has a long interview with Brenda Power which you can read HERE. We'll discuss it more later, but right now I have to go, so I'll let you read it in the meantime. But of course I can't help but notice the bits where she goes on about me. Among other things, apparently I'm a terrible mysoginist because my name is Panti! (not that she has any idea how I ended up with that somewhat unfortunate nickname)

BP: The second comment I would make is that there are lots of male columnists – John Waters, Ian O’Doherty, Kevin Myers – who have all said the same thing. None of them received the kind of hate mail that I did. I can only conclude that it was misogyny. That I was a woman and I deserved a kick for having the temerity to stand up to a very militant, mysoginistic element of the gay community. 
In the middle of it all, I got a letter from a gay community activist who said, ‘Look, debate is useful and healthy. I don’t agree with what you said, but I absolutely respect your right to say it. What your big problem was, you made the mistake of offending Miss Panti.’
When I look back on the comments I got, pretty much all of the nastier, vicious comments referenced Miss Panti.

GCN: I understand that you received hateful comments and there is always an element of society who will take things to the extreme. However, I am a member of the gay community who is not an extremist, and I would say that there was a lot of real hurt and anger felt by people across the board. Why do you think there was this reaction?

BP: Because I think that there is an element of the gay community who feel vindicated by victimhood and that gets more and more desperate as the battle gets closer to being won. There is no role for feeling marginalised, victimised and misunderstood, so relatively mild comments by me generated a reaction that was completely out of proportion to what I said.
I believe Miss Panti has a clip of me in his show for his performance and when I heard that I thought, ‘what a Godsend for him my comments were, because if that’s the best he can muster, he must be pretty close to desperate.

...

GCN: Do you understand what drag is?

BP: Yes, I think I do, actually. It is very mysoginisitc, a hostile parody of femininity that is designed to make the point, ‘look how stupid women are. Imagine straight men fancying that?’ And what’s a pantee? It’s an intimate form of women’s clothing, a slightly embarrassing item of underwear. It’s not something women discuss when they get together, it’s not something women flaunt. For a man to call himself Miss Panti is openly mysoginistic. 

bigots | marriage equality | media | personally panti
Comments 38

21 Apr 2010

Attention Brenda Power

Unlike leopards, it turns out homophobic journalists - even ones who don't think they're homophobic - can change their spots. At least Pulitzer prize winning columnists like Kathleen Parker can, when they actually engage with the issues and the people involved.

So, she loves the gays (and the stereotypes) and the fun she has with them, she loves gay culture, and gays in movies, but she doesn't think their relationships are equally valid to her own, or that their families deserve the same protections.

Or at least she used to think that...

 (via The Stranger)

marriage equality | bigots
Comments 2

09 Apr 2010

Nate Phelps

In 2008 a young journalist got into a cab in Canada, and chatted to the driver as they drove. The journalist started to tell the cab driver about having just seen Louis Theroux's BBC documentary The Most Hated Family In America, about the notorious gay-hating Westboro Baptist Church, led by insane nut-job Pastor Fred Phelps, when the cab driver told him that he was Nate Phelps, the estranged son of the Phelps family.

The journalist went on to write this article about his encounter with Nate, and after the attention it brought him, Nate went on to speak out about his family and his violent father, and write a book.

Earlier this week, he was interviewed on Canadian TV.

bigots | religion poisons everything
Comments 2

05 Apr 2010

Brenda power is sowwwy

Well no, not really. She's sorry that people got annoyed with her. But she's not so sorry that she's bothered to go and find out about gay people's lives, or meet gay families, or listen to people raised by gay parents, or read any of the numerous studies that have been done on children raised by gay parents, or visit the now numerous countries that have introduced gay marriage. Not so sorry that she's bothered to do anything that might actually advance her understanding of the issues she purports to know something about, or of the people she claims to be concerned about. Not so sorry that she's prepared to do anything that might actually challenge her facile, reactionary and ignorant views. Not so sorry that she's done anything to investigate the facts of the argument she's decided to make herself a figure head for.

So forgive me if I don't consider her sorry for anything at all except being the target of some mean e-mails from understandably upset people. Boo hoo Brenda! So you got some nasty letters. Get over it! Try being a young gay person with people like you stoking the fires of homophobia with your half-baked, willfully ignorant, self righteous meanderings. There's nothing worse than a person like Brenda, who has a number of national platforms - newspaper columns, TV and radio appearances - to spout ignorant rubbish that actually affects the lives of real people, complaining and whinging when some of those people then spout back. Puke.

bigots | people | marriage equality
Comments 38

23 Mar 2010

Fr Ted and Dougal protest against the Civil Partnership Bill outside the Dáil

When artist Will St Leger heard that there were going to be conservative Christians protesting the CP Bill outside the Dáil today, he popped down there with his camera...

gay rights | bigots | religion poisons everything
Comments 3