Previously: DC Comics hires anti-gay author Orson Scott Card to write Superman

"The derogatory comments I made yesterday were a reflection of thoughts in my head, but they are not how I feel."

This is the same week that former-49er offensive tackle Kwame Harris was outed as he faced charges for assaulting his ex-lover, a man, outside a Chinese restaurant during an argument about soy sauce and underwear.

Meanwhile, 49ers safety Donte Whitner, who previously appeared in an "In Gets Better Project" video supporting LGBT teens, expressed disappointment in Culliver's intolerance:

"I actually do feel differently from what Chris said," Whitner said. "We are NFL players, but we are humans also. Who knows? There could be somebody gay in our locker room right now that's scared to come out, which he has a right to be if he is scared to come out because of all of this and how other teammates might feel. But I feel like anybody can be who they want to be if they want to be that. As long as you don't disrespect other people and go about your own business in your way, I don't see what the problem is."

Chris Culliver issues apology (ESPN)

"49ers' Donte Whitner ready to accept gay teammate, disappointed in Chris Culliver" (USA Today)

"Ex-49er Kwame Harris accused of beating up ex-boyfriend appears in court" (SF Examiner)]]> http://boingboing.net/2013/01/31/san-francisco-49ers-homophob.html/feed 51 http://boingboing.net/2012/11/20/burrowing-into-the-gerbil-rumo.html http://boingboing.net/2012/11/20/burrowing-into-the-gerbil-rumo.html#comments Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:04:16 +0000 Rob Beschizza http://boingboing.net/?p=195173 not one documented case of the practice exists."]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/11/20/burrowing-into-the-gerbil-rumo.html/feed 40 http://boingboing.net/2012/05/31/aint-no-homos-gonna-make.html http://boingboing.net/2012/05/31/aint-no-homos-gonna-make.html#comments Thu, 31 May 2012 18:14:31 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=163927 In a video made viral by our pals at Dangerous Minds, a child sings:

"I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong / I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong / Ain't no homos going to make it to heaven."

Then, a crowd of adults cheers and gives a standing ovation.

You can watch the video at Dangerous Minds.]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/05/31/aint-no-homos-gonna-make.html/feed 123 http://boingboing.net/2012/05/10/mitt-romney-was-a-homophobic-b.html http://boingboing.net/2012/05/10/mitt-romney-was-a-homophobic-b.html#comments Fri, 11 May 2012 03:14:18 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=160019

REUTERS: Romney speaks at a campaign event in Wilmington, DE.

In the Washington Post, testimonials by prep school classmates of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paint the former Governor of Massachusetts as a homophobic bully. So, basically— he hasn't changed much. Snip:

John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

With help from other bullies, the story goes, Romney then tackled Lauber, pinned him to the ground, and while the young man was weeping, cut off his hair with scissors.

Romney was not disciplined for the incident, or for the rest of the alleged bullying detailed in the story. Lauber died in 2004, so we can't hear his side—but friends interviewed in the Washington Post piece say the hair-cutting attack impacted him deeply and remained with him for the rest of his life.

ABC News also interviewed school friends of Romney, one of whom described his behavior as “like Lord of the Flies.” Romney apologized for the "prank" in a radio interview today, but said that “homosexuality” was never on his mind. Oh, of course not. Snip:

Romney’s former classmate, Phillip Maxwell, now a lawyer, described witnessing the incident and said he considered the “prank” the two pulled at Michigan’s Cranbrook School to be “assault and battery.” Maxwell said [he] held the boy’s arm and leg, describing himself and his friends as a “pack of dogs.”

]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/05/10/mitt-romney-was-a-homophobic-b.html/feed 260 http://boingboing.net/2012/04/04/hidden-links-between-kony2012.html http://boingboing.net/2012/04/04/hidden-links-between-kony2012.html#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:45:45 +0000 Xeni Jardin http://boingboing.net/?p=152964

Bruce Wilson has been looking deeper into ties between Invisible Children, the group behind "Kony 2012," and a secretive fundamentalist Christian organization known variously as The Family and The Fellowship—which, as it turns out, is said to be a force behind Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill. For a primer on The Family, by the way, there's no better place to start than Jeff Sharlet's book.

What Wilson dug up is now detailed in an extensive blog post. There's a lot to sort through, but it's exhaustively-researched stuff.

At least two of Invisible Children's programs have involved collaboration with The Fellowship and and its members, and by 2007 -- according to accounts from both Invisible Children and Fellowship members -- Invisible Children had partially merged its developing school and mentoring programs in Uganda with The Fellowship's Ugandan educational and leadership training system, which works to raise up a cadre of elite Jesus-centered leaders who will transform their nation along "Biblical" lines - with one apparent objective being the categorical elimination of homosexuality.

Read the whole thing.

Here's an interesting note not included in the report, which Wilson points out to Boing Boing: if you do a search on Google for "schools for schools" you'll find documentation of of Invisible Children fundraising activity in schools across America. Add "bake sale" he says, and "you get schools doing bake sale fundraisers for IC's schools for schools (S4S) program which - it so happens - was being supervised, at least back in 2009 but possibly still - by The Family. So what's the bake sale for?"

Police Constable John George said police boarded the cruise ship and arrested the two men on suspicion of indecent exposure and "buggery," a term equivalent to sodomy on the island. The cruise was organized by Atlantis Events, a Southern California company that specializes in gay travel. President Rich Campbell, who is aboard the cruise, said in a phone interview earlier that he thought the two men would be released. He later said in an email that the company has organized many trips to Dominica and would "happily return."

Cruise ticket buyer, beware. (thanks, Antinous!)]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/03/22/gay-cruise-not-so-gay-after-2.html/feed 69 http://boingboing.net/2011/12/22/an-open-letter-to-minnesota-st.html http://boingboing.net/2011/12/22/an-open-letter-to-minnesota-st.html#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:13:51 +0000 Maggie Koerth-Baker http://boingboing.net/?p=135617 It doesn't appear to count toward the tally at GayHomophobe.com (where it's now been 6 days since the last time a homophobic public figure turned out to be queer), but Minnesota state senator Amy Koch has joined the vaunted ranks of politicians who are deeply concerned about the sanctity of all marriages except their own. The married Koch recently resigned as Senate majority leader after word got out that she'd had an "inappropriate relationship" with a male staffer.

Koch is a major force behind the attempt to enshrine special rights for straight people into Minnesota's constitution, so you might have thought she'd treat her own magical straight marriage with the respect it deserves. John Medeiros, co-curator of Minneapolis' Intermedia Arts' Queer Voices reading series, can only conclude that lapse into blatant hypocrisy must, somehow, be the fault of queer people. So, he's written an open letter, apologizing to Senator Koch, on behalf of queer Minnesotans, for forcing her to betray the sanctity of straight marriage.

Dear Ms. Koch,

On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage.  We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an "illicit affair" with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife. These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tactics have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society.

We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry.  And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.

It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of "adultery."

 

Forgive us. As you know, we are not church-going people, so we are unable to fully appreciate that "gay marriage" is incompatible with Christian values, despite the fact that those values carry a biblical tradition of adultery such as yours. We applaud you for keeping that tradition going.

And finally, shame on us for thinking that marriage is a private affair, and that our marriage would have little impact on anyone's family. We now see that marriage is more than that. It is an agreement with society. We should listen to the Minnesota Family Council when it tells us that marriage is about being public, which explains why marriages are public ceremonies. Never did we realize that it is exactly because of this societal agreement that the entire world is looking at you in shame and disappointment instead of minding its own business.

From the bottom of our hearts, we ask that you please accept our apology.

Thank you.
John Medeiros
Minneapolis MN

Thank you, City Pages!/p>]]> http://boingboing.net/2011/12/22/an-open-letter-to-minnesota-st.html/feed 38