Focus On The Rainbow

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….. a new bill that increases tax incentives to lure television and movie production to Florida would deny those tax breaks to films that feature gay characters.

Current laws prevent tax breaks for films that feature smoking, sex, nudity, or profane language. The proposed changes make Florida guidelines seem even more like the Hays Code that censored Hollywood from the the ’30s to the ’60s. Thankfully, Precourt hasn’t borrowed more ideas from that censorship office and written in language that would also disallow interracial relationships, suggestive dancing, and “lustful kisses.”

Besides not offering tax breaks to films that “exhibit or implied act” of nontraditional family values, films with gratuitous violence would also be left out.

In recent years, Florida has slipped from third in the country in terms of film production, only behind California and New York, to out of the top ten. Other states have aggressively offered more generous tax credits.

The bill, which also has a companion bill in the Senate, still has to go through various committees before it reaches the House floor. – Source – Miami New Times

Come make your movies here in Connecticut, heck you can get married at the same time.

read the full article from ABC News and NIGHTLINE

Anti-Homosexual Bill Creates Global Uproar

Roy Ashburn, the conservative California state senator who has a record of voting against gay rights and issues admitted Monday on radio station KERN (video/audio clip here) that he is gay. Apparently one of the “best kept open secrets” in California which many in California political circles, state and local media and even members of the LGBT community knew, or at the very least suspected. What has angered many LGBT bloggers and activists is so many “knew” but never called out Ashburn on his accountability in being gay and yet voting against LGBTs.

Ashburn who was arrested last week for DUI and was seen leaving a popular gay bar with another man still says that even though he is gay he will continue to vote in his conservative, and presumably anti-gay manner, on behalf of his constituents.

In the interview Ashburn said, “The best way to handle that is to be truthful and to say to my constituents and all who care that I am gay,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s something that has affected, nor will it affect, how I do my job.”

“My votes reflect the wishes of the people in my district. I have always felt that my faith and allegiance was to the people, there, in the district, my constituents. And so as each of these individual measures came before the Legislature I cast ‘no’ votes, usually ‘no’ votes, because the measures were . . . almost always acknowledging rights or assigning identification to homosexual persons.”

In an article at the Sacramento Bee, Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, a gay rights group that sponsors many state bills, called Ashburn’s comments about his voting record “a lame excuse.”

“He’s blaming his constituents,” Kors said. “There are legislators in the Central Valley who have voted for LBGT (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender) rights.”

Never missing an opportunity “turn” gay and lesbians away from their “sinful ways”, one anti-gay moralists group is ready to “help” Ashburn with his wrong choice of lifestyle.

Benjamin Lopez, lobbyist for the Traditional Values Coalition, said, “I don’t know why Roy strayed. But he said that the Rev. Louis Sheldon, founder of the coalition, was open to help Ashburn with counseling.

In a press release California Equality said, “We can empathize with Senator Ashburn’s long and difficult journey to admit that he is gay. Equality California looks forward to working with the Senator to use his experience to educate the people in his district on why he deserves the same rights and privileges as a gay man as any other Californian.

For an earlier posting on the hypocricsy of anti-gay Conservatives go here.

Before beginning this commentary let me say in advance to those who will complain, I am not anti-Catholic, nor anti any religion for that matter. However as with anti-gay Conservatives there does come a time when one needs to comment on the groups and in the case of religion, the institutions which do everything to strike at, defame and seek to block any advancement of a segment of society, in this case of course the LGBT community.

My own “family tree” is a diversified one when it comes to religion. There are Catholics, Episcopalians, agnostics too I’m sure, Presbyterians and there have even been a Baptist or two thrown in for good measure. With that being said I apologize in advance only to members of my “family tree” who were brought up in the Catholic faith for this less than flattering piece.

This week the Catholic Church, and indeed the heart and soul of it, the Vatican, was rocked by news of a member of the Vatican choir who is alleged to have arranged gay sexual liaisons, or pimping in the vulgar and more accurate description, for an Italian government official who is also a papal usher or as is described a “gentleman of his Holiness”. While many news organizations covered this, for the sake of simplicity I’ll use CNN’s report for snippets.

A Nigerian man who sang in a Vatican choir arranged gay liaisons for an Italian government official who served in the unpaid role of papal usher, according to transcripts of wiretaps collected by Italian authorities.

The purported conversations were between Angelo Balducci, who oversaw the Italian government’s awarding of construction contracts — including work on the airport at Perugia — and Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 39-year-old Nigerian singer. They were recorded between April 14, 2008, and January 20, 2010.

Ehiem said an escort friend introduced him to the Italian businessman more than a decade ago. “He asked me to do it with him, but I like women and just the thought grossed me out,” Ehiem said.

“He asked me if I could procure him other men. He told me that he was married and that it had to be done in great secrecy. I told him that there was the Internet. But he asked me to take care of it because he couldn’t do it from his home.”

He added, “Sometimes he would ask for two meetings a day.”

Now one can well argue that this in fact has nothing to do directly with the Vatican, nor the Catholic Church and Ehiem was procuring men on his own. True, but, as the CNN article reports among the men Ethiem was alleged to pimp were members of the seminary. How close to home does that ring in the hundreds, if not thousands of reported incidents of child abuse and sexual exploitation by Catholic priests over the decades, incidents which the Catholic Church and directly or indirectly the Vatican, does everything in its power to ignore, silence, pay off or shuffle a “problem priest’ from one church or diocese to another. 

This is not about a priest being gay or bi-sexual. This is about pedophiles taking advantage of their young wards if you will, for acts “as” sinful, if indeed not more so, than what the Catholic Church in its dogma and piety says about the LGBT community while at the same time sweeping its pedophilia “problem” under the rug whenever possible.

It never ceases to amaze this writer how those, be it the church or politicians,who have the most to lose, are the most sanctimonious and pious when it comes to LGBTs and denying and achieving some semblance of equality as every other American, yet have skeletons in their closet which they hide until someone eventually finds the key and then when that door is open all of a sudden they are filled with remorse, guilt and seek forgiveness.

After the media has stopped covering events and people’s memories fade, they again continue their “Holy Crusade” against LGBTs. The ones who do not forget are the members of the LGBT community who will not be hesitant in reminding those with short memories of the “falls from Grace” of the self-righteous.

They quote the Bible by selected verse casting homosexuals to Eternal Damnation. They seek to keep homosexuals from having the basic rights of equality and protection which most Americans take for granted. They support an archaic military rule that deprives talented and much needed human assets from joining or being relieved of duty when the “truth” is found out about an individual. And in some cases they compare the homosexual lifestyle to that of pedophiles.

And yet while condemning a lifestyle or impeding advancement and making inflammatory comments about homosexuals, they are in a variety of ways themselves a part of the very lifestyle which they oppose or are participants in the darkest corners of illegality.

In 2006 Florida Republican Mark Foley, a six term Congressional representative, resigned over allegations he sent sexually explicit Internet messages to at least one underage male who was a former page at the Capitol. At the time ABC News reported that it had interviewed Foley, 52, about excerpts of instant messages provided by current and former pages under the age of 18. ABC reported that Foley, under the AOL Instant Messenger screen name Maf54, made repeated references to sexual acts and body parts.

In his short resignation letter Foley said, “I am deeply sorry and I apologize for letting down my family and the people of Florida I have had the privilege to represent.” Foley’s hypocrisy was he was Chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and an opponent of child pornography.

In a New York Times article titled The Open And Closeted Lives Of A Gay Congressman from October 4, 2006 written by Shailagh Murray, First, there was whispering about the Republican congressman’s sexual orientation, beginning in 1994 during his first House campaign. He was almost outed two years later when he voted against gay marriage. In 2003, Foley dropped a Senate bid after the rumor mill again started churning. He dismissed the speculation as “revolting and unforgivable.”

But as Foley attempted to navigate the tricky path of being a gay Republican, there was yet another, darker secret that he proved unable to handle: He was making sexual advances toward teenagers. For all his caution about his sexual orientation, it wasn’t that but his pursuit of underage former congressional pages that wrecked his career.

Also in 2006 Evangelical Reverend Ted Haggard was removed from his church and found guilty of “sexually immoral conduct” by an investigative board. Haggard was accused of soliciting gay sex and buying illegal drugs.

After the allegations were made public, Haggard resigned as president of the influential National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group representing more than 45,000 churches with 30 million members.

He also temporarily stepped aside as pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church.

In January of 2009, the New York Times ran a story that Haggard made payments starting in 2007 to a young male church member who had a relationship with Mr. Haggard before the dismissal, the church’s pastor told worshipers.

Mr. Boyd (senior pastor of New Life Church) said in an interview that the payments, and what has now amounted to second body blow of scandal, were kept quiet for two years partly because of legal constraints, and partly because of ministerial confidentiality rules, since the man had sought out church authorities for counseling about the affair. Mr. Boyd declined to identify the young man, but said he is now in his 20s and was over 18 at the time of the relationship.

U.S. Senator Larry Craig who twice voted against adding the words “sexual orientation” to the federal hate crimes law and also voted to give states the right to refuse to recognize gay marriage resigned when news of charges of inappropriate behavior in an airport bathroom surfaced. 

It was a relatively quick end to a drama that began Monday with the stunning disclosure that Craig had pleaded guilty to a reduced charge following his arrest June 11 (2007) in a Minneapolis airport men’s room.

Craig was arrested June 11 in a police undercover vice operation. The arresting officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, said in his report that the restroom where he encountered Craig is a known location for homosexual activity.

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Of course there have been others including Bob Allen member of the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Chairman of John McCain’s Presidential Campaign who in 2007 was arrested for soliciting a male undercover police officer for sex in a Titusville park restroom.

Allen was considered to be acting suspicious by police as he entered and exited the men’s room three times, according to a Titusville Police report. Moments later, he approached the plainclothes officer and offered to perform oral sex for $20, police said.

Allen faces second degree misdemeanor charges. A seven-year House veteran, the term-limited Allen had been considered a likely Senate candidate next year. He also had been named a co-chairman last spring of Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign team in Florida.

Allen was one of 21 Florida legislators to sign Gov. Jeb Bush’s friend-of-the-court brief supporting the state’s ban on gays adopting children and he co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill that would have enhanced penalties for “offenses involving unnatural and lascivious acts” such as indecent exposure.

Now we have California Republican State Senator Roy Ashburn who is well known for his anti-gay voting record.

Sources tell CBS13 a state senator from Southern California was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving Faces, a gay nightclub in midtown Sacramento, early Wednesday morning.

The California Highway Patrol pulled over Senator Roy Ashburn at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday after an officer noticed a black Chevy Tahoe swerving at 13th and L Streets.

The Sacramento County district attorney says Republican state Sen. Roy Ashburn’s blood-alcohol level was .14 percent when he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving near the Capitol.

Ashburn, a father of four, is a Republican Senator representing parts of Kern, Tulare and San Bernardino Counties.

Granted being seen coming out of a gay bar and having a male rider in your car does not equate to one being gay, but could this be the next shoe to drop in the ever increasing stories of the hypocrisy of those who are anti-gay and then are caught with their proverbial pants down ?

For more on Republican and even Democratic lawmakers who are anti-gay hypocrites and lead secret or double lives visit BlogActive by Mike Rogers.

UPDATE – The shoe has dropped boys and girls as is now being reported by CBS13 in Sacramento just mere hours after this article was posted on Focus On the Rainbow. According to CBS13,West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon — who is openly gay – says he has seen Ashburn in gay hotspots a number of times. He says while he respects Ashburn’s right to privacy, but not when it involved hypocrisy.

“You can’t just live a double life in politics anymore,” said Cabaldon. “To live a secret life and at the same time be attacking exactly the same people you are one of, but you are too ashamed to admit, that’s the hypocrisy for folks whether you are gay or not. It’s just unacceptable in politics.”

LATE UPDATE – Equality California sent out this brief press release regarding Ashburn.

Equality California Executive Director Geoff Kors issued the following statement regarding Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) who was recently charged with a DUI reportedly after leaving a Sacramento gay club.

“It is extremely hypocritical for Senator Ashburn, by patronizing a gay club, to be enjoying the fundamental rights and freedoms of association that others have fought so hard for but that he himself has repeatedly voted against.”

Senator Ashburn has consistently received a zero percent on Equality California’s Legislative Scorecards since 2004, with the exception of 2007, when he scored 10 percent.

Ashburn has not been seen at the capitol since his arrest and according to CBS13 no one from his office had any comment except to say Ashburn has been on leave for the past several days and no one has spoken to him, nor would anyone in Ashburn’s office comment as whether Ashburn will resign over the incident and his now subsequent “outing” by West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon.

Ashburn did release the following statement after his arrest, “I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuse for my poor judgment,” said Ashburn, who through a spokesman declined to be interviewed. “I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences for what I did.”

According to Project Vote Smart, Ashburn has voted NO on the following gay issues or related topics.

Creation of “Harvey Milk Day” – AB 2567, “Harvey Milk Day” – SB 572 (two NO votes), Expanding Anti-Discrimination Laws – AB 2654, Statement of Opposition to Prop 8 – SR 7 and Recognizing Out-Of-State Same-Sex Marriages – SB 54.

Ashburn once said in an interview with Lois Henry of Bakersfield.com, “Why would that be anyone’s business? Including The Californian’s? I think there are certain subjects that are simply not relevant and this is one of them. It has no bearing on the job I do.” in answer to Henry asking Ashburn if he were gay after it was rumored a gay newspaper was going to “out” Ashburn.

Henry reported in the article that in 2005 Ashburn organized a “Traditional Family Values” rally, but as she wrote he kept a “low profile” during the Prop 8 campaign. What’s most  interesting in her article was when she wrote the following, During my conversation with Ashburn last summer, we also agreed that if he were having an affair, regardless of gender, with a lobbyist, someone who worked for him or someone under age, those would also be legitimate public concerns. No, he said, none of those situations applied to him.

“Do you think I’m that stupid?”

Perhaps not in those instances but to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking at a gay bar and being seen leaving with another man no less, it does bring one to wonder how high up on the “stupidity scale” Ashburn chooses to rise.

What’s that old children’s story, oh yes, “The Emperor Wore No Clothes“.

And so it goes boys and girls, just another day in the life of anti-gay conservatives.

A group of evangelical pastors are concerned that the visit of a gay cruise ship to the Bahamas could potentially threaten the “morality and decency” of the country’s “Judeo-Christian” heritage.

In response to the resurgence of intent made by gay cruise organisers to make the Bahamas its port-of-call, the Bahamas Coalition of Evangelical Pastors has reaffirmed its opposition.

Due to the potentially lasting negative effect they feel such events will impact, the group pledged: “Please be assured that we would be taking the very same position, and with the same fervour, if this were a cruise dedicated to self-proclaimed adulterers, fornicators, liars or any other such biblically defined sinful behaviour, who have it as their determined end purpose to have that sinful behaviour accepted as a morally legitimate lifestyle.”

Two weeks ago, organisers of the expected gay cruise, defended their decision to come to the Bahamas, arguing that the homophobic incidents experienced in the Bahamas happen everywhere.

Cindy Brown, Miami Gay Pride operations director, claims the only way to affect a change in public perception of homosexuals was to “allow them to see who we really are”.

While the Evangelical Pastors maintain their intent is not to discourage any individual from visiting the Bahamas, they feel it is imperative that visiting persons are not allowed to mock the country’s values and ideals by “openly flaunting” contrary social behaviour.

A statement said: “It is our hope that the Ministry of Tourism and the organisers of these types of events would make a concerted effort to communicate our country’s societal and cultural norms regarding homosexual conduct, especially in public places.”

The pastors maintained that they were in no way a hate group, but instead seek means to ” prayerfully, lawfully, and lovingly” prevent the Bahamas from ‘falling prey’ to the evolving global mentality towards homosexuality as a legitamate and acceptable lifestyle. – Source – The Tribune

Homosexuality is one of the biggest sore points in Bahamian society. Homophobia once drove hundreds to converge in a public square to protest a gay cruise. In 2004 that mob screamed at tourists disembarking their ship that they would not allow them to “take our children.”

Many seem to imagine that gays lurk in dark corners or back alleys committing illicit, immoral, non-Christian acts. Gays are our modern day “boogie men” ready to snatch little children away to corrupt and convert to an abhorrent lifestyle. Many can’t fathom how a man, or woman, could be attracted to and have an intimate relationship with a person of the same sex, therefore it must be dirty and wicked. The prejudice, oppression and violence towards gays is similar to the bigoted beliefs of racists and segregationists.

As a descendant of persons who were subjected to this type of treatment, I find it a contradiction to be both black and homophobic.

If you stack the arguments segregationists made to oppose interracial marriage next to the argument against gay marriage, they are shockingly similar. When we question whether the child of a gay couple would grow up confused, it bears an embarrassing similarity to statements made by bigots who conjure up images of the “tragic mulatto” failing to fit in the “white world” or the “black world.”

Often times, homophobia is a fear born out of selective use of the Bible to support hate. Today the descendants of slaves quote Leviticus 18:22 to justify denouncing homosexuality just as bigots quoted Genesis 9:25 to justify the subjugation of their fellow man. The correlation between bigoted attitudes towards gays and the filthy racism that kept millions of our brothers and sisters in physical and metaphorical bondage for centuries seems crystal clear to me.

Yet I’ve often wondered what in our culture has given rise to the seething hatred which is spewed over the talk radio airwaves and from certain church pulpits.

According to anthropologist and scholar Dr Nicolette Bethel, Bahamian attitudes towards gays were not always so pronounced.

“(Homosexuality in the Bahamas) has not always brought about such a passionate response, historically Bahamians have been far more tolerant of different sexualities than other West Indians,” Dr Bethel told Insight in a recent interview.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, homosexuality “wasn’t talked about, wasn’t condemned. People might have laughed, might have ridiculed, but no one was talking about (gay) people going to hell,” remembered the scholar. - Source and more at The Tribune.