Category Archives: sexuality

your body is the next country to be conquered

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In Indiana, “Planned Parenthood Is Told to Show Children’s Files” (NY Times). This situation is hot on the heels of the Kansas Attorney General’s fishing expedition. Meanwhile “Savage Love” author Dan Savage continues to point out that straight folks have as much to fear from the sex police as gay folks.

Update: Instead of engaging in these kinds of activities, those who claim to be interested in the wellbeing of underage girls should ask themselves this question: What is it about our culture that inhibits girls from reporting genuine sexual abuse to the proper authorities? Shame-based sex education–a philosophy that treats all sexual activity by young people as pathological–is part of the problem. If they were honest in their intent, the attorneys general would also consider what legal threats might result in the reduction of sexual choices available to adult men who impregnate underage girls.* I doubt, however, that they will take these steps.

*I’m not advocating that state attorneys general should engage in legal threats to try to regulate sexual behavior; I’m just trying to point out the hypocrisy.

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the terry family saga

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When I lived off of Northside Drive in Atlanta in the late ’80s, I used to drive past a women’s health clinic on the way home from class, and for several weeks (months?) there were anti-abortion protesters camped out on the sidewalk near the clinic: Operation Rescue was a new movement then, Randall Terry its charismatic leader. Terry denounced abortion, birth control, divorce, homosexuality, and the usual assortment of radical right obsessions.

Fast forward to the year 2004: The Washington Post reports that Terry’s son, Jamiel, has written an essay for Out magazine about coming to terms with being gay. Two of Randall Terrry’s daughters have gotten pregnant without being married, and he has traded in his first wife for a younger model.

And still he takes on the air of the righteously indignant, telling whoever will listen about how untrustworthy his children are. This is what hatred and hypocrisy look like.

Jamiel is quoted in the Post: “We were taught that if you saw pain in the world, you should speak out. I knew that because of my name I could get published and help young men and women who are gay and struggling because of their religious upbringing.”

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who do you love?

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If we need a Constutional amendment banning gay marriage, does that mean that the Constitution as it is currently written permits gay marriage?

Let’s face it. Conservatives are obsessed with sexual intercourse, and by that I don’t mean that they are particularly in favor of it or that they are glad when people enjoy it.

No, what I mean is that conservatives have decided that out of every single “sin” or “virtue” that humans have ever put forward as something to be avoided or embraced, humping is the one that we need to pay most attention to.

“It must be regulated,” says the American political party that makes the most noise about getting the government out of our lives. “What you do in your bedroom is our business. We’ll decide what does and does not go on there. Marriage? Why, that’s just an excuse to have sex. And it’s really about reproduction. Always has been. So if you’re not going to reproduce then no marriage for you. Well, we’ll make exceptions for straight people who can’t have kids, but that’s it!”

In college I had a conservative Christian fundamentalist roommate who said he couldn’t wait to get married so he could have sex. Oh, so that’s what marriage is for. Check. Thanks for the clarification. God can’t get you if have sex when you’re married. You’re safe! It’s a free pass!

Now wait a minute. You’re telling me the gays want to get married, too? But that’s our holy humping ground! They’re gonna ruin everything! Marriage is no longer a safe place if the gays are there, too! How is God going to tell the good humping from the bad humping?

Avarice? Anger? Envy? Greed? Pride? Sloth? None of them hold a candle to Lust in the eyes of the right wing. Well, maybe Sloth. Cadillac driving welfare queens and all that. No need for a Constitutional amendment inspired by staggering acts of avarice and greed, apparently. War profiteering? How dare you even think those words! No, what the country needs to be most concerned with now is the gays.

Does marriage continue into the afterlife? If so, how does divorce work? Do human laws alter what happens in eternity? And if this world is merely a holding station for the hereafter, as GOP “Christians” surely believe, then isn’t my body just an arbitrary shell for my soul? Does my penis go with me when I die? If so, do I at least get a nice clutch purse to carry it in?

Do conservatives honestly believe God is as obsessed with sex as they are?

Put yourself in God’s shoes for a minute. Admittedly, maybe God doesn’t wear shoes. God might not even have feet. But imagine for a minute what it’s like to be responsible for the entire universe. You’ve probably got a pretty busy schedule what with stars devouring each other and black holes causing havoc. You know how it is. Just when you get things the way you like them something falls over or gets spilled.

Next thing you know, someone who keeps calling himself one of your chosen people is praying to you, and because you feel kind of bad about never straightening them out on the whole nomenclature thing, this is a call you feel you have to take. “God, the gays are doing it! I mean they’re not even ashamed about it or anything. They’re … you know … doing it! I think you know what I mean, God. Don’t make me spell it out.”

I have to imagine at this point God heaves a big sigh. All this work at creating an unimaginably vast universe. Beauty as far as the eye can see. Untold numbers of creatures just on this one planet. It would take millions of years just to catalogue all the species and all the variations to be found, much less figure out how to best take care of them.

And what does God get? The greatest number of messages are from the kids who take the short bus to church, the ones who keep asking, “Is this going to be on the test?” The ones who miss the big picture. The ones who never stop feeling bad about feeling good.

It has to be a little frustrating, don’t you think?

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imagine it’s 1945…

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…and you’re reading this press release. How would you respond?

Americans Overwhelmingly Oppose Mixed-Race ‘Marriage’

Those who oppose laws permitting mixed-race ‘marriage’ outnumber supporters by a two-to-one margin.

“We need to strengthen marriage.” According to the National Annenberg Election Survey, that sentiment, which was expressed at a rally last Sunday in Boston to support traditional marriage, is one held by an overwhelming majority of Americans.

Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, said the support for race-pure marriage knows no cultural or social boundaries, and includes African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Jews, Evangelicals, Catholics and people of no particular faith.

“This is what the Vatican calls ‘the common currency of humanity,’ ” he said.

Daniels is pleased with the survey overall, despite what he says was a “deliberate bias” in the questioning that was designed to reflect poorly on traditional marriage.

“Whenever you ask people if they oppose something, you lower the numbers,” Daniels said. “If you ask them, ‘Do you support marriage as (being between) a man and a woman if the same race?’ you get much higher numbers.”

Support for traditional marriage was bolstered by those who are angered by recent court decisions, such as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s order to give mixed-race couple access to the commonwealth’s marriage law, according to Glenn T. Stanton, senior analyst for marriage and sexuality at Focus on the Family.

“The tremendous judicial overreach that we’re seeing in . . . Massachusetts . . . is not driving it, but it’s helping it ó and its helping with the outrage.”

The numbers were released as lawmakers in Massachusetts prepare to debate the definition of marriage. In fact, the Massachusetts Legislature convened today to debate a state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman of the same race.

Ray McNulty, a spokesman for the Coalition for Marriage ó of which Focus on the Family is a part ó said the poll numbers will help the cause.

“We’ve circulated the Annenberg numbers to all the legislators here in the statehouse,” McNulty said. “They’re very powerful.”

The survey found that 60 percent oppose mixed-race marriage laws in their state. Meanwhile, 49 percent of Americans oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment, while 42 percent favor its passage.

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