Key Issues

Christian Groups Take Issue With Anti-Bullying Laws

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News of Note: Christian Groups Take Issue With Anti-Bullying Laws

Focus on the Family is planning to counter the “Day of Silence,” an annual event to protest LGBT bullying set for April 20, with its own “Day of Dialogue”. The evangelical organization’s aim is to muffle an effort that “crosses the line in a lot of ways beyond bullying into indoctrination, just promoting homosexuality and transgenderism.”

The group has been advocating an anti-anti-bullying message for years. When a California school adopted an anti-bullying rule that mentioned gays and lesbians in 2010, backlash ensued.

“The school introduced anti-bullying lessons, but really they’re teaching elementary school kids about gay marriage,” Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family, told ABC. “We think parents should have the right to teach kids about it in their own way.”

Hate groups like Focus on the Family, including Family Research Council (FRC) and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), have a sickness, a disease that continues to infect American schools, politics, and public opinion. They offer nothing more than religiously motivated intolerance and hate. How are such poisonous and miserable ideas able to spread? How and why are they able to relentlessly pursue the condemnation of their fellow Americans, even themselves?

As religious fundamentalists try to drag America back into the dark ages, they are only delaying the inevitable. Truth and reason can not be stopped. I feel some satisfaction knowing that these kids probably have internet access, that somehow they will learn that human sexuality is natural, inherent, and wonderful. While Focus on the Family tries to chain our future generations to the church, through sexual repression and self loathing, their religion will be inevitably remembered for what it is, a disease.

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in Key Issues / News of Note  by 23 Apr 2012 0 comments

The new legal theory that enables homophobic evangelizing in US schools

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News of Note: The new legal theory that enables homophobic evangelising in US schools

Last month, 8,000 public high school students in Montgomery County, Maryland, went home with fliers informing them that no one is “born gay” and offering therapy if they experienced “unwanted same-sex attraction”.

The group behind the flier, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), isn’t the kind one expects to find represented in student backpacks. Peter Sprigg, a board member of PFOX who doubles as a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, recently told Chris Matthews that he believes “gay behavior” should be “criminalized.” PFOX president Greg Quinlan told another talk show host that gays and lesbians practice “sexual cannibalism.”

The Family Research Council is a documented “hate group,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Truth Wins Out (TWO), a high-profile organization fighting anti-gay religious extremism, has covered the Montgomery school fliers, and even filed a lawsuit recently against PFOX and Greg Quinlan for defamation — Quinlan resorted to accusing TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen, of threatening his life. Such an obvious attempt to smear TWO should only serve to further paint PFOX as the bigots that they really are.

I can only imagine the amount of bullying and self-loathing that these fliers generate. Kids are discovering their own sexuality in high school, discovering who they are.

Over the past 20 years, legal advocacy groups of the religious right – a collection of entities that now command budgets totaling over $100m per year – have been pushing a new legal theory, one that has taken hold of some parts of the popular imagination and that has even been enshrined in recent judicial rulings. The essence of the theory is that religion isn’t religion, after all; it’s really just speech from a religious viewpoint. Borrowing from the rhetoric of the civil rights movements, the advocates of the new theory cry “discrimination” in the face of every attempt to treat religion as something different from any other kind of speech.

These religious groups do not have the ability to distinguish between religious dogma and rational thought. Freedom of religion is great because it also gives us freedom from religion. We need to actively label the intolerance that these groups spew as religion, and never allow them to sneak into public schools.

I like to imagine a future that is more progressive. With hate groups like PFOX finding ways to teach their backwards ideas in public schools, the future we all want to see protected is being undermined. If you have experienced similar intolerance or bigotry, we would be happy to add your story to our continuing coverage of this most important issue.

in Key Issues / News of Note  by 01 Apr 2012 0 comments

US Congress Expands New Anti-Protest Law

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News of Note: US Congress expands authoritarian anti-protest law

A bill passed Monday in the US House of Representatives and Thursday in the Senate would expand existing anti-protest laws that make it a felony—a serious criminal offense punishable by a lengthy prison term—to “enter or remain in” an area designated as “restricted.”

The bill—H.R. 347, or the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011”—was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate, while only Ron Paul and two other Republicans voted against the bill in the House of Representatives (the bill passed 388-3). Not a single Democratic politician voted against the bill.

What about our 1st Amendment right to peaceful assembly? With the Occupy movement sweeping the globe last year and the US Presidential election continuing to gain momentum, this bill has come at just the right time to squash any civil response or resistance. As John F. Kennedy famously said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” I hope that it doesn’t ever have to come to that.

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in Key Issues / News of Note  by 14 Mar 2012 0 comments

Santorum backs nullifying existing gay marriages

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News of Note: Santorum backs nullifying existing gay marriages

There are 18,000 married gay and lesbian couples in California and at least 131,000 nationwide according to the 2010 census, conducted before New York state legalized same-sex marriage in July.

Rick Santorum says he’ll try to unmarry all of them if he’s elected president

He would “unmarry” all same-sex marriages? Instead of listing reasons why gay marriage is a good thing and why it should have nothing to do with politics, I’d rather emphasize how terrible Rick Santorum is. I would normally disregard his comments as impossible or beneath me, but the nagging reality that we could have him (or someone with similar views) as president scares me senseless.

Santorum represents the magnitude of ignorance and hate many Americans still must overcome.

What do you think has caused these backwards ideologies to maintain so much face in America? What do you think we should be doing about that? We look forward to hearing your opinions.

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in Key Issues / News of Note  by 12 Mar 2012 0 comments

Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich All Promise To Ban Porn

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News of Note: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich All Promise To Ban Porn

The top three Republican presidential candidates pledged a war on porn today which means that they have promised more action to ban porn than to create jobs.

The conservative group Morality In Media is head over heels today after all three top Republican candidates promised to go war against the distribution of porn. In a written statement, Rick Santorum said, “Federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced. If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so.”

Not to be outdone, Mitt Romney gave a statement to the group that said, “(I)t is imperative that we cultivate the promotion of fundamental family values. This can be accomplished with increased parental involvement and enhanced supervision of our children. It includes strict enforcement of our nation’s obscenity laws, as well as the promotion of parental software controls that guard our children from Internet pornography.”

Then we have Newt Gingrich, who wasn’t satisfied with a written statement. In a face to face meeting, Gingrich told Morality In Media that, “Yes, I will appoint an Attorney General who will enforce these laws.” The existing laws that each of these candidates were referring to are federal laws that they and Morality In Media feel make the distribution of pornography illegal.

Pornography prohibition? There is absolutely no way that will work. Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry that covers the whole globe. This very moment, tens of thousands of people are looking at porn online. It’s far from uncommon for the conservative and the repressed to get involved with the very sexual acts they claim to oppose. How can anyone even listen to these hypocrites?

Sometimes I wonder if these candidates (and people like them) are systematically turning our basic human instincts against us. Maybe they’re just hateful monsters who actually believe the dribble they spew, but I like to imagine US presidential candidates would have a higher level of intelligence than these bigots.

in Key Issues / News of Note  by 21 Feb 2012 0 comments

February 2012 Newsletter

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Hundreds rallied around our message, “Sexual Freedom – You Are Born With It” at the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s Creating Change conference a couple of weeks ago in Baltimore, which brought together 3000 equality rights activists and allies. Many made videos about what sexual freedom means to them and you will be seeing them here in the coming months.

Most of the VenusPlusX crew were out in force and brought an exciting presence to the Creating Change Exhibition Hall. And, we supported the Bi/Alt/Kink Hospitality Suite, and the Trans Hospitality Suite, where we convened a special afternoon reception for Trans Latino and Latina attendees.

Hot on our priority list, and something we have been especially pleased to inaugurate recently, is VenusPlusX’s roll out of Spanish language resources, including videos, news, and insights into Transhuman Erotic Freedom, such as “A Course in Immortality” (“Un Curso de Inmortalidad”) presenting a rational, myth-free, and practical guide to living a sane and happy life.

Plans for the coming months include upstepping our work with a coalition of organizations fighting police bias and the resultant violence against the trans community, and expanding our online conversation on Transleadership & Transunity to include many more voices.

In January, VenusPlusX joined the U.S. Human Rights Network’s Sexual Rights and Gender Justice Working Group, and attended our first working meeting at Creating Change. Also last month, founder Alison Gardner was installed as secretary of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance. Continuing as members of the Gender Rights Maryland Advisory Board, we are looking forward to continuing to work as long as it takes to finally realize trans-inclusive legislation in that state.

For those of you who want to go deep, you can find a long interview of Dan and Alison done in TeleXLR8 virtual space by Guilio Prisco, talking about the “new age of sexual freedom” and its direct connection to advocacy for equality rights. The Institute of Ethics & Emerging Technologies (IETT) posted the video and a summary (here).

Lady Gaga launched her youth empowerment foundation, Born This Way Foundation, on November 2, and we were happy to see it start on the same day to follow VenusPlusX, a sign we are permeating the twitterverse, and spikes in our viewership have been encouraging. So, if you haven’t already, will you start following @VenusPlusX on Twitter, and “Like” us on Facebook, or subscribe to our RSS feed, when you can? You can find us on Tumblr now, too.

in Events / Key Issues / Public Information  by 20 Feb 2012 0 comments

Russian cities introduce baby ‘drop boxes’ to stop unwanted children being left in bins

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News of Note: Russian cities introduce baby ‘drop boxes’ to stop unwanted children being left in bins

Anonymous baby drop boxes have been introduced for the first time in Russia.

The Krasnodar Territory in south Russia bought five of the so-called baby drop boxes in the beginning of November so mothers could drop off unwanted children anonymously.

The first three were installed in Sochi, Novorossiysk, and Armavir, and by the end of the month one child had already been left.

The move was aimed at providing sanitary conditions for unwanted children, instead of ‘having them left in garbage containers, health officials told Ria Novosti.

Elena Redko, the head of the Krasnodar Health Department, told the news service the first child to be left, a baby girl, was healthy and would be passed to childcare officials.

It is unfortunate that any society would need these baby “drop boxes,” but it seems like a necessary evil. In a perfect world full of accessible birth control and sexual education, hopefully we wouldn’t need these at all. These drop boxes are not some new Russian concept, similar programs exist all over the world. (In the U.S., all the states have Safe Haven Laws allowing newborns to be left anonymously in hospitals and fire stations.)

I didn’t realize how easy (in the legal sense) it was for a mother to anonymously get rid of a child. How do you feel about the existence of these baby drop boxes? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note  by 19 Feb 2012 0 comments

Bill Gates gives $750 million to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

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News of Note: Gates Foundation gives $750 million to Global Fund

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave $750 million Thursday to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to help assure that the organization can keep supplying AIDS drugs while it seeks to adjust to the economic downturn.

The Global Fund, which has disbursed $15.1 billion to low-income countries over the past decade, said in November that it would not award any new grants until 2014. Nearly all of the fund’s money comes from governments in the industrialized world, many of which were unwilling to increase their donations or, in a few cases, fulfill previous pledges.

The fear has been that some AIDS programs in Africa might run out of money, forcing patients to stop taking the antiretroviral drugs that are keeping them alive. While such dire events were never likely, they are even less likely now.

Seven hundred and fifty million dollars? That is a profound amount of money, thank you Bill Gates! Now I’m curious how much of this money will make it into the right hands as well as how much will contribute to finding a cure for HIV. The Global Fund has raised nearly 30 billion in pledges from developed nations since 2002. That is a tremendous amount of money floating around, and a significant portion of that is being spent on treatment. I just hope that no one involved in the distribution of this wealth sees treating HIV/AIDS as more profitable than finding a cure. Never the less, I applaud anyone who donates $750 million to relieve human suffering.

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note  by 17 Feb 2012 0 comments

Afghan woman slain for giving birth to daughter

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News of Note: Afghan woman slain for giving birth to daughter

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — An Afghan man killed his wife for giving birth to a third daughter rather than the son he’d hoped for, police said Monday.

The 28-year-old victim, who was known by the one name of Storai, was strangled by her husband — a local militia member — and his mother on Saturday, authorities said.

Storai had given birth to the couple’s third daughter three months ago in Mohasili village in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province.

Police said they arrested the victim’s mother-in-law in connection with her death, but Storai’s husband was still at large, likely sheltered by heavily-armed militia colleagues.

“The existence of militiamen is a huge problem and therefore we face difficulty in arresting him,” Kunduz police chief Sufi Habib said.

Nadera Geya, head of the Kunduz women’s affairs department, called the killing one of the worst examples of violence against women she had encountered.

Acid attack
Violence against women is common in Afghanistan. In late November in the same province, an Afghan family that refused to give their daughter in marriage to a man they considered irresponsible was attacked at home by assailants who poured acid over both parents and three children.

This kind of male-dominated society can be seen all over the world. Even with the onset of technology like abortions, male children are often preferred in counties like China, India, Pakistan, Korea, and Taiwan, leading to a significant number of missing females from the population. Not to mention burqas and female genital mutilation; we still have long way to go. How do you think society’s portrayal of gender affects sexuality? Will we ever collectively move past this inhumane gender bias? Please share your thoughts below.

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in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note  by 15 Feb 2012 0 comments

Iran confirms death sentence for ‘porn site’ web programmer

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News of Note: Iran confirms death sentence for ‘porn site’ web programmer

Iran’s supreme court has upheld the death

sentence for a web programmer who faces imminent execution after being found guilty of developing and promoting porn websites.

Saeed Malekpour was picked up by plainclothes officers in October 2008 and taken to Evin prison in Tehran, where he spent a year in solitary confinement without access to lawyers and without charge.

A year after his arrest, the 35-year-old appeared in a state television programme confessing to a series of crimes in connection with a porn website. On the basis of his TV confessions, he was convicted of designing and moderating adult materials online by a court in Tehran, which handed down death penalty.

Malekpour later retracted his confessions in a letter sent from prison, in which he said they had been made under duress.

According to Malekpour’s family, he is a permanent resident of Canada and is a programmer who wrote photo-uploading software that was used by a porn website without his knowledge.

Giving someone the death penalty is a big deal. Giving someone the death penalty for being related to a pornographic website is absurd. The fact that Saeed simply wrote image-uploading software and was not running or participating with actual pornography makes this incident absolutely insane.

in Global Sexual Freedom Watch / Key Issues / News of Note  by 12 Feb 2012 0 comments