Retired General Agrees with Scott Lively: Gays Cause Genocide
Posted by Matt in DADT, Hate Crimes, News, Politics on March 20th, 2010
In January, we were shocked by video of Ex-Gay Industry Leader Scott Lively telling a Ugandan audience that gays were to blame for the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. You might remember that Lively has also published a book claiming that gays were behind the Jewish Holocaust. It was pretty outrageous, but at least he was alone in baselessly blaming a minority group for genocide.
Well, no more. Last Thursday, Mr. Lively got some company.
In sworn testimony on a potential Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal, Marine Corps General John J. Sheehan (ret.) told the US Congress that gays are to blame for 1995’s Srebrenica Genocide during the Bosnian War.
Rachel Maddow was on top of the story on her show that night.
Senator Carl Levin wasted no time challenging Gen. Sheehan’s lies, but the damage was already done. Dutch officials, including Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, immediately expressed stunned outrage at Gen. Sheehan’s claims.
Friday night, Maddow gave an update on the fallout.
Germany. Rwanda. Now Bosnia.
Gosh, I wonder where we’ll strike next.
More Activists Arrested, This Time for ENDA
If you turned off the internet once Lt. Choi and Cpt. Pietrangelo were arrested, boy did you miss some major news.
Once they were done at the White House, Get Equal moved to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s offices on Capitol Hill and in San Fransisco. There they refused to leave until Speaker Pelosi committed to a vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has been languishing in Congress for…well, years.
No identities yet; will update when I get them
After several tense hours, four protesters at Pelosi’s office on the Hill were arrested and taken, coincidentally, to the same facility that Choi and Pietrangelo are being held in. Just before midnight, the ENDA 4 were released without bail.
Incidentally, Choi and Pietrangelo are being held without bail or contact to the outside world until they appear in court tomorrow.
Speaker Pelosi continues to stall on ENDA.
Chained to White House Fence, Choi Demands Right to Serve
See update at bottom of this post.
Wow. Dan Choi (thankfully) hijacked this afternoon’s Human Rights Campaign/Kathy Griffin (don’t even get me started) rally to bring the attention back where it belongs: Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
How did he do it? He chained himself to the White House fence in his first major act of civil disobedience.
Lt. Choi and Cpt. Pietrangelo (pic via @piconico)
In a futile attempt to manage headlines, police did not immediately arrest Lt. Choi or Capt. James Pietrangelo, whose Supreme Court appeal was denied last year after the Obama administration asked the Court not to take the case.
Instead, within ten minutes of the protest’s start, police arrested Robin McGehee, one of the organizers for last October’s Equality March and head of new group Get Equal, for “disorderly conduct” reportedly because she organized the protest.
Also, she wasn’t wearing a uniform. Arresting a servicemember in front of the White House would make for scandalous front page pictures.
Get Equal's Robin McGehee arrested (pic via @MichaelsThought)
But their effort didn’t get Lt. Choi or Cpt. Pietrangelo off the fence, so police finally handcuffed them half an hour later and placed them in a much less conspicuous police van. Still waiting for those pictures. This photo was taken as police began to remove them from the fence.
Lt. Choi and Cpt. Pietrangelo arrested (via Kerry Eleveld of Advocate.com)
Hallelujah, praise the Lord, and thank you Lt. Choi and Cpt. Pietrangelo for actual doing something.
This is what’s coming, gays. Time to stop begging for crumbs from the table. Time to stop accepting the calls to “be patient.” We are coming into the civil disobedience stage. Are you willing to be arrested for your freedom? Join Get Equal if you’re ready to put up. And by the way, rule number one: you don’t disperse because the police told you to. That’s what happened in the crowd today, and it needs to not happen again.
UPDATE 03/18/2010: Here’s video of CNN’s Rick Sanchez coverage this afternoon.
UPDATE 03/19/10: Lt. Choi and Cpt. Pietrangelo were arraigned Friday afternoon after being held overnight without bail or access to a telephone. They were brought into the courtroom in handcuffs and leg irons. Both pleaded not guilty and opted for a jury trial over a $100 fine. Both were released and will stand trial on April 26, 2010.
P.S. Kathy Griffin, who said on HRC’s stage that she would come with Choi to the White House, never showed up. Her only tweet in reference about the White House protest bears that out. Predictably, once they turned her cameras off she didn’t really care all that much. HRC also decided not to show up.
Let this be a message to LGBTs everywhere: Don’t accept them as allies just because they say they’re allies. The time for easy allies who don’t want to get their hands dirty is over.
And that includes the HRC.
AF Sargent Pays the Price After Police Play Peeping Tom
Tonight we have news of another vindictive third party outing to force a gay person out of the military. This time, it’s an arm of the government doing the outing. And it’s Air Force Sgt. Jené Newsome who was punished for being a lesbian.
The Rapid City Police Department says Newsome, an aircraft armament system craftsman who spent nine years in the Air Force, was not cooperative when they showed up at her home in November with an arrest warrant for her partner, who was wanted on theft charges in Fairbanks, Alaska.AF Sgt. Jené Newsome
Newsome was at work at the base at the time and refused to immediately come home and assist the officers in finding her partner, whom she married in Iowa — where gay marriage is legal — in October.
Police officers, who said they spotted the marriage license on the kitchen table through a window of Newsome’s home, alerted the base, police Chief Steve Allender said in a statement sent to the AP. The license was relevant to the investigation because it showed both the relationship and residency of the two women, he said.
“It’s an emotional issue and it’s unfortunate that Newsome lost her job, but I disagree with the notion that our department might be expected to ignore the license, or not document the license, or withhold it from the Air Force once we did know about it,” Allender said Saturday. “It was a part of the case, part of the report and the Air Force was privileged to the information.”
He said his department does not seek to expose gay military personnel or investigate the sexuality of Rapid City residents.
Allender said the department was finishing its internal investigation and has determined the officers acted appropriately. They have not been placed on leave during the investigation.
Newsome’s partner is currently out on bail on one felony and three misdemeanor counts of theft stemming from an incident last year, court officials in Fairbanks said. More information was not immediately available, and Newsome said she didn’t know the status of the case and didn’t provide more details about it.
In the complaint filed last month with the department, ACLU South Dakota said police had no legal reason to tell the military Newsome was a lesbian and that officers knew if they did, it would jeopardize her military career.
Newsome, who was discharged in January, said she didn’t know where the marriage license was in her home when police came to her house on Nov. 20 and claims the officers were retaliating because she wouldn’t help with her partner’s arrest.
“This information was intentionally turned over because of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and to out Jené so that she would lose her military status,” said Robert Doody, executive director of ACLU South Dakota. The ACLU is focusing its complaint on the police department, not the military, and Newsome said she and her attorney have not yet decided on whether to file a lawsuit.
“The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ piece is important and critical to this, but also it’s a police misconduct case,” Doody said.
Because of DOMA, the federal government does not recognize marriage between two people of the same gender. Even if it’s SOP to inform the Air Force when a servicemember’s spouse is charged with a crime (which I’m told is the case), the US Armed Services only recognize the federal definition of marriage, not the Iowa definition.
Therefore, for the purposes of the federal government, Sgt. Newsome has no spouse.
The local police department was not bound to notify anyone of Sgt. Newsome’s non-spouse, and in fact violated her privacy by vindictively submitting evidence that they found by peeking through her window for a witch hunt because they were mad at her.
Here’s a link to the Rapid City Police Department’s Twitter account. You know, in case you want to tell them what you think.
OK Senate Votes to Destroy Evidence of Crimes Against Gays
Posted by Matt in Hate Crimes, News, Politics on March 11th, 2010
The Oklahoma State Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to force state officials to break federal law by destroying evidence of crimes against gays.
Read that sentence again. Seriously. Read it aloud and marvel at the irrationality. And yet, it’s true.
Under the new provisions of Senate Bill 1965, reports that were collected during investigations of possible hate crime that did not end in a conviction would be destroyed or kept by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. [Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City] said the bill is meant to prevent the federal law enforcement officials from taking over a case and applying different standards when local law enforcement has already investigated a case.
“We just don’t want the pendulum to swing too far the other way,” he said. “This protects people to do or say whatever they want, as long as it complies with local ordinances.”
Including, for example, if they want to make hunting homos the Official Oklahoma Pastime.
And don’t think Sen. Russell, who is totally not gay you guys, is looking to protect hate crimes in general. He made his anti-gay intentions clear when this bill was introduced last November.
NOT! GAY!
State Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City, said the newly passed Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which extends hate crimes law protections to include actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability, oversteps the bounds of the federal government and hinders free speech and religious freedom.Russell said because the government has decided to intervene on issues of morality, he is worried that religious leaders who speak out against any lifestyle could be imprisoned for their speech.
“The law is very vague to begin with,” Russell said. “Sexual orientation is a very vague word that could be extended to extremes like necrophilia.”
Let’s quickly dispense with this closet case’s arguments. No, federal hate crime legislation does not prevent hate mongers from spewing their bile against those that they hate. Such a provision would clearly violate the First Amendment.
Secondly, the law is not vague, nor can it be extended to necrophilia. This is an old James Dobson lie that has been disproved both by watchdog groups and by the congressional committee before the Matthew Shepard Act was voted on.
Every once in a while, I wonder where I’d move if I had to leave my home state. If I weren’t convinced before, Oklahoma is certainly crossed off the list now. I wouldn’t even visit at this point.
(h/t Pam’s House Blend)
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