Milk

I watched Harvey Milk's biographical film today, at times with tears flowing from my eyes. It saddens me that basic human rights often take several generations and a lot of sacrifice, even bloody human sacrifices, to acquire ... and it made me think that maybe the Christians, when they carried out their hateful anti-gay propaganda and spread lies about gay citizens (both in the seventies and recently in the 2008 elections) provided the fuel that the gay community needed. They made everyone in the gay community feel threatened with the fear of living in an age where we would lose our jobs only for being gay, and made us pull our resources together to really BECOME an organized community.

Without the threat from the Christian Reich, we would not have needed to fight for power and for equal rights. It was an ugly but powerful incentive.

Please watch the movie. Every gay person in this country owes much to the gay activists of the previous generations.

"We stand on the shoulders of those that came before us" - Yoruba proverb

A beacon of liberty

Nobel Peace Price winner Desmond Tutu of South Africa said recently that homophobia is a "crime against humanity" and "every bit unjust" as apartheid.

While most countries surrounding South Africa remain in the dark ages with regards to the rights of African LGBT citizens, this one country shines as an example of democratic values. It is the first country in the continent to give full equal rights, including marriage rights, to its gay and lesbian citizens.

Thank You!

An atheist wrote a letter to the Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church.

I am a student at Blue Valley North High school. I was never originally a student from BVHS. I moved here in October 2005 after leaving my hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi. Yes I am a Hurricane Katrina victim. I want to thank you for bringing knowledge into my life.

After Katrina happened I kept asking myself "why did this happen" "how come everything in my grandmother's house have to be destroyed" "how come the government was so ineffecient" "why did my life have to change". Thanks to you guys I am now aware it is because of HOMOSEXUALITY! Not global warming, not the fact that the government is unstable, not the fact that my grandmother wasn't properly prepared, and not because it was a major catastrophe, but because gays are in the world. Hell I can't even blame it on me because I'm an athiest when I have a perfectly good homosexual scapegoat sitting right next to me in one of my classes.

Then came my move to Blue Valley North. Well apperently God hates me there too! Thank goodness I don't believe in God or I would have very low self esteem!

I'm glad you pickett funerals, because when you do die, I will be there, and I will show you no mercy.

You're lucky "God loves" you guys, because no one else seems to. I guess what I wanted to say is that every bad moment that has ever happened in your life was brought upon yourself and if you think it's bad living on earth with all these homosexuals, then I can't wait for whatever hell awaits you.

Love,
Allison the Athiest

(I decided to not post Timothy Phelps' reply. It was too vulgar.)

Verses that didn't make it into the Bible

"Tell Mary (Magdalene) to leave us. For women are not worthy of life." - Peter, in the Gospel of Thomas

"I am afraid of Peter. He threatens me and hates our race." - Mary Magdalene, in Pistis Sophia

Go figure!

"At this stage in my life, I am a loser" - Ted Haggard

HBO will be screening “The Trials of Ted Haggard”, a documentary which details the rise and fall of the closeted evangelical homophobe, who remains married but recently declared he still struggles with sexuality.

The conclusion of the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, for example, was that only 16% of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels are actually authentic, accurate portrayals of what Jesus really said. The other 84% are words read into the Jesus of history by an interpreting community during the oral period. Much of what the gospels call the acts of Jesus fall into a similar statistical spread.

- Bishop John Shelby Spong

Fortune cookie wisdom :~)

I surrender the HOW
and let my YES
be enough
and I allow my YES
to inform, fund and guide me

- The Chicago Center for Spiritual Living, a progressive New Thought community