‘Come Out’ Album’s Message: God Loves You Just as Gay as You Are
LOS ANGELES, CA — Gospel singer and an out lesbian member of clergy in the Gospel Truth Music Ministry (http://www.rizigospel.com/), the Rev. Rizi Nasele Timane’ is unveiling her new album “Come Out,” a collection of original songs that call for full human rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. As part of the album’s promotion, Timane’ is touring the United States during the summer of 2009.
The album’s title song challenges the fundamentalist notion that God and the Bible condemn homosexuality and strives to educate the public about what the Bible really says and does not say about homosexuality. “I have extensively studied the Greek and Hebrew translations of the Bible, and I found that, when interpreted properly, the Bible does not condemn homosexuality at all,” stated Timane’.
“I’m the first out lesbian reverend and gospel singer from Nigeria, West Africa,” Timane’ continued. “I was one of the first people to identify as openly gay in homophobic Africa, and I know firsthand how that rejection translates to drug addiction and suicide.” According to the Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. Additionally, San Francisco State University’s Chavez Center Institute has found that LGBTQ youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers because of the negative treatment endured.
“For LGBT persons, this painful struggle with religion or spirituality and sexuality is responsible for depression, low self-esteem, drug addiction, self-abuse, isolation and the entering into of false heterosexual marriages,” said Timane’. “Worst of all, it’s responsible for thousands of suicides each year in the LGBT community, especially amongst our teens and young adults. It is my hope to put a stop to these negative traits and suicides by re-educating our community.”
“Anti-LGBT arguments like the one contending that California’s Proposition 8 ensures children’s wellbeing by providing them with a mother and father are totally absurd. In the case of Proposition 8, the state’s laws permit adoption by gay and lesbian parents as well as single parents and even allows courts to assign a single grandparent, aunt, uncle or even a non-blood relative to be a child’s guardian or caregiver,” continued Timane’.
“The goal of my new album is to enable any LGBT person seeking God to know that God loves them just as gay as they are,” states Timane’. She also wants to help those who are struggling with their spirituality and sexuality, just as she did for many years, to finally find complete reconciliation and affirmation.
Gospel music lovers and Timane’ fans will be able to attend live performances at the following times and events:
– June 20 at 2:50 p.m., Rhode Island PrideFest in Station Park
– June 27 at 3 p.m. and June 28 at 12:30 p.m., San Francisco Pride Celebration in Civic Center Plaza
– July 9 at 7:30 p.m., Annual Fellowship Convention in Westin Atlanta Airport hotel
– July 18 at 2 p.m., San Diego Gay Pride 2009 in Balboa Park
To learn more about Timane’ and her experiences as a gay Christian that inspired her music, visit http://www.rizigospel.com/.
“Come Out” video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfre1lV61Es
| Published by |
 |
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/come-out-albu…
Far right seeks to scuttle Defeat of State Department global women’s office
They are at it aginA: these so-called Christians who understadn God so well they can tell us what God wants us to do – which is always to live by the tenants of their religion.
Now self-proclaimed “leaders” of the “pro-life and pro-family” world (aka right wing nuts) are working to defeat legislation in the House that they calim would “empower the State Department to promote abortion and homosexuality in other countries.”
Horrors!
Where is the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) or these other “pro-life and pro-family” when it comes to providing American kids with food and good schools or effective healt care? Not on the front lline of fighting for these Biblic priorities – oh no! There’s no money to be reaised from “Conservative Christains” if you are talking about raising taxes to feed hungry children or prpvide poor famies with health care.
No matter that is what the Bible calls us to do time and time again.
These “leaders” know better than the Bible – better than the Bible – that God’s top priority is voting against a State Department authorization bill that would create an Office for Global Women’s Issues.
In part, they say the measure would push the State Department to pressure other countries to rescind laws restricting homosexual and transsexual actions, or at least that is the way they read the bill according to their latest fund raising effort.
For more on the far rights’s efforts see Defeat of State Department global women’s office urged
BP News
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/far-right-see…
Homosexuals Are “On Their Way to Hell” says Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson has dammned homosexuals to hell, claimed the majority of homosexuals were turned to that lifestyle due to an abusive relationship, and called homosexuality an “abomination of God”…all in one minute and 37 seconds.
Speaking on The 700 Club today, Robertson was responding to a question posed by a mother who was asking for help on “how to handle” her homosexual son: See Homosexuals Are “On Their Way to Hell” says Pat Robertson
TERRY MEEUWSEN (co-host): This is Theresa. This is difficult. She says, “How should we, as parents of a homosexual son, handle the ongoing challenges facing us, such as staying true to our faith and following the commandment to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’? This is very difficult for us.”
ROBERTSON: Well, first of all, he’s not your neighbor. He’s your son; that’s a different thing. You owe him, you know, advice and counsel and guidance. You’re his parent. First of all, you didn’t say how old he is. Secondly, I am not at all persuaded that so-called homosexuals are homosexuals because of biological problems. There may be a very few, but there are so many that have been made homosexuals because of a coach or a guidance counselor or some other male figure who has abused them and they think there’s something wrong with their sexuality. So you need to get deep into why he is what he is, instead of just saying, “Well, he’s a homosexual so how do I handle him, and how do I be Christian?” Well, I think you ought to tell him, “Listen, son, you know, here’s what the Bible says about this, and it’s called an abomination before God, so I’ve got to tell you the truth because I love you.” That’s what I think. All right, what else?
MEEUWSEN: And then you do that — you love him.
ROBERTSON: You love him. Of course you love him. And you accept him. You love him, but at the same time, you can’t let him just go, you know, he’ll wind up –
MEEUWSEN: Without knowing truth, yeah.
ROBERTSON: Well, I mean, if somebody’s on their way to hell, they’ll — I mean, you’ve got to love them to rescue them.
Instead of calling her son an “abomination of God” as Robertson would suggest, maybe “Theresa” should love and appreciate her son, regardless of his sexual orientation.
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/homosexuals-a…
When asked, this gay soldier told
TUSTIN In a calm corner of his garage, a soldier rummages through reminders of the last ten years of his life. Silver coins. A Middle Eastern sash. An Army pistol. Only a few of the souvenirs in Dan Choi’s war chest will fit into his travel duffel.
As he packs, his mom walks in. She reaches around her son’s boulder-sized biceps for a hug.
“Are you staying for dinner?”
“I’m not sure.”
By nightfall, though, Choi will surely be gone. He’s getting out of Tustin, maybe for good.
Monumental change has unsettled the 28-year-old combat veteran and his family. In March, on national television, he said, “I am gay.”
That was news to a lot of people, including his bosses. And, the three short words thrust Choi into the limelight, booked his calendar with equal-rights rallies – and earned him a pink slip from the military.
But all the cameras and microphones that have trailed Choi since then have captured only part of the story. They haven’t been privy to his parents’ distress, his past anxieties or his newfound sense of liberation.
Thousands of other troops have gotten booted for outing themselves (or being outed) as gay or lesbian. But, like clockwork, most have disappeared from public view. Choi figures he will too at some point.
But he’s not going away now, and he’s not going away quietly.
HIGH SCHOOL LOWS
Over loudspeakers, he ranted.
It was 1998, and President Clinton was getting grilled by national media for his then-alleged affair with a 22-year-old intern. At Tustin High School, Choi, 17, took on the role of Clinton scold. He locked himself in a room and commandeered the public address system to decry the commander-in-chief’s weakness and offer what he saw as a cure-all: faith in Jesus Christ.
Choi’s sister, Grace, then a freshman, recalls her brother’s outburst as “surprising, but not embarrassing.”
Their dad, a Baptist minister who fought in the South Korean Army, helped raise his three kids to battle against injustice and sin. Years later, that duty to speak out would inspire Choi to talk about his sexuality – and throw a crimp in their father-son relationship.
“I always think of the story of a throng of people telling Christ to silence his disciples,” Choi says, adding: “And Christ said, ‘… if they keep quiet, the rocks will cry out.’”
But, in high school at least, Choi’s bold talk came with a cost. The acne-faced student body president lost his job as morning news announcer, and was forced into a sabbatical from student government.
Graduation cleaned his slate. Reinstated as president, the straight-A student gave a parting address to his peers. And, bound for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Choi left a rousing, two-page letter in the back of his own yearbook.
“Leave your kingdom,” he wrote to himself, “to be a lonely plebe down in the dump.”
STANDING UP
In a forest near the academy, Choi smeared earth-tone paint on his face and hunkered down with his rifle. Energy-sapping practice missions, he says, were key to his college experience.
On campus, Choi studied environmental engineering. Critically, he also began mastering Arabic.
And he held onto his faith. He led Bible studies in the dorms and recited the “Cadet Prayer” every Sunday with the West Point choir. “Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong,” he prayed, “and to never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won.”
Still, Choi concealed a truth. Since fourth grade, he had begged God to take away his attraction to other males. In college, he says, he remained unwilling to “explore” his sexuality.
In 2003, the Iraq War kicked into gear. Choi, now clear-faced and brawny, was soon sent to serve in the Persian Gulf.
There, he says he “greased hands” with elder Muslim Sheikhs, patrolled the Triangle of Death and designed a reverse-osmosis water plant for Baghdad citizens. He also passed on his knowledge of Arabic, as a teacher to thousands of American troops.
Throughout it all, compelled by the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, Choi kept mum about his sexual preference.
His final wartime task, delivering backpacks full of cash to contractors, kept him awake at night. It was around the time of that mission, sleepless in the desert, that he started asking a tough question:
Do I really want to keep lying?
When his tour ended, he wanted to boomerang back to Iraq. But that dream was brought to a halt in March when, on behalf of scores of West Point alumni and active-duty servicemembers, he went public with his sexual orientation.
WAR IN PEACE
On his last afternoon in town, rice steams in the kitchen as, upstairs, Choi sorts through a box of Army accolades.
“Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be one of those stodgy old veterans wearing all his stuff,” he says, laughing, clutching a handful of medals.
Proud but tired of the half-truth, the highly decorated soldier returned from Iraq in 2008 and ditched reenlistment. Instead, he became a platoon leader in the National Guard. Stationed in New York, he met someone, parked down the street and lived in his car to be close to his first boyfriend.
Then Choi came home to Tustin to come out to his mom and dad – 19 times in fact, to show he wasn’t bluffing. He handed his dad a copy of the book “Loving Someone Gay.” A few days later he discovered it unopened on the floor of his closet.
“They don’t accept it,” Choi says. “And I don’t think they will anytime soon.”
Neither will the military. After his first of several prime time TV appearances, Choi, the rare Arabic-speaking serviceman, received an ultimatum from his employer – accept discharge or stand trial.
His chances before a judge seem slim, based on the dismissal of 12,500 past soldiers.
But he believes the fortunes of an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian members of the armed forced could be changed if Congress were to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a move President Obama favors. So, Choi keeps talking to news anchors and shouting to crowds, which strains his home life – and, recently, compelled him to pack up and move.
“Silence is not a right,” Choi says.
“Silence is an unacceptable, inexcusable wrong.”
See When asked, this gay soldier told
OCRegister
* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/when-asked-th…
All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families Launched
WASHINGTON, May 11 – Leading organizations today released a curriculum designed to help faith communities support and embrace lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Institute for Welcoming Resources, COLAGE and Family Equality Council announced that this multimedia curriculum will go a long way in providing the necessary tools to make faith communities affirming of LGBT people and their families.
“While many churches have done very well welcoming individual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members into their midst, many have not done so well with LGBT families,” says the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel, Institute for Welcoming Resources and faith work director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. “But LGBT families deserve the same love and honor as all of God’s beloved families. This curriculum helps congregations extend God’s extravagant welcome to all of God’s families – especially LGBT families.”
All in God’s Family includes concrete tools to educate faith leaders, including a step-by-step guide to supporting LGBT families of faith and tools for facilitating group learning, community dialogue, Bible study and community action planning to highlight LGBT families in our communities. Additionally, the curriculum includes Families Like Mine, a book about adults with LGBT parents written by Abigail Garner, whose father is gay; the youth-produced documentary In My Shoes: Stories of Youth with LGBT Parents; and a CD containing the phototext exhibit “That’s So Gay: Portraits of Youth with LGBT Parents.”
“I know many LGBT parents who struggle with faith,” says Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council. “It can be difficult to find a congregation that feels welcoming and supportive. Though they want raise their children in a community that shares their values and beliefs, LGBT parents also want their children to be embraced. That’s why we partnered to put together All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for our LGBT Families. We know there are thousands of congregations out there that want to embrace our families. We want to give them the tools to do so more fully.”
“For youth and adults with LGBTQ parents, finding a faith community where your family is respected and reflected can be a challenge,” says Meredith Fenton, COLAGE program director. “COLAGE is pleased to be a partner on All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for our LGBT Families and invites your faith community to use these tools to move beyond acceptance to full inclusion and celebration of LGBTQ families.”
All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families can be acquired for a suggested donation of $50.00. As a special promotion, the first 50 congregations to request the curriculum will receive it for free. All in God’s Family: Creating Allies for Our LGBT Families can be acquired at www.WelcomingResources.org.
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/all-in-gods-f…
Look Who’s in Bed Together on Gay Marriage Fight
L ying on his cot in the Longworth House Office Building in the small of the night, Jason Chaffetz had a scary dream: The conservative Republican from Utah had beaten the odds, defeated an incumbent and made it to Washington, only to end up by some bizarre twist of events arm-in-arm with Marion Barry, the crack-smoking laughingstock former mayor of the District of Columbia.
“Oh man, if I had run a campaign saying I’d be working closely with Marion Barry, I don’t know that I would have been elected,” Chaffetz says.
The nightmare turns out to be reality: Chaffetz, once the placekicker on the Brigham Young University football team, is now the ranking Republican on the House subcommittee in charge of D.C. affairs, and in that role he is leading the rush against the District’s decision to recognize same-sex marriages. The freshman congressman is utterly confident that his is the moral position on the issue, but he admits to a certain frisson of doubt when he learned that his accidental ally in this fight is the former Mayor for Life, an erstwhile champion of gay rights who has decided that same-sex nuptials are immoral.
Chaffetz has never met Barry, but he’s willing to have lunch with the man — if Barry is willing to meet at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, the only Washington restaurant the congressman frequents. (This may prove to be a stumbling block, as Barry leans more toward fruit juices and health foods these days.)
If the two do break bread, they’ll discover that they share a view that gay couples ought to have the same legal rights as any other Americans, but should not be permitted to marry. They’ll take comfort in the fact that their views are both based on the biblical definition of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. They’re both happy to point to the fact that President Obama is also opposed to gay marriage.
But the lunch is destined not to be a lovefest. It’s not just that Chaffetz and Barry come from wildly disparate backgrounds or represent very different Americas, although it is true that Chaffetz’s district is 88 percent white and only 25 percent of his constituents have a college degree, whereas Washington is 56 percent black and 45 percent of its residents have a bachelor’s or beyond.
See Look Who’s in Bed Together on Gay Marriage Fight
Washington Post* Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/look-whos-in-…
Brian Normoyle: Gathering Storm: Miss California Trying to Redefine Traditional Breasts for the Rest of Us
For many thousands of years, across every culture and continent, women have known traditional or “natural” breasts to be those that God — or nature — gave them. To think otherwise flies in the face of millennia of human history and spiritual doctrine. Prejean’s Bible repeatedly reminds us we are made in God’s perfect image while warning us against exchanging the “natural” use of our bodies for those deemed “unnatural.” And, while one could argue the rights to privacy and personal freedom are inherent in our nation’s founding democratic principles and that every American has a right to his/her own life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, organizations like NOM — for whom she’s now a spokesperson — Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council repeatedly admonish us that life in America would be better if theology and biblical doctrine were the primary determinant of civil law and personal liberties.
While someone else was footing the bill, Prejean made the choice to defy her God’s perfect design and creation of her and to rebel against the intended and “natural” purpose of her mammaries: namely, the nursing of babies rather than the visual attraction sufficient enough to win a vanity contest. Moreover, if her teeth aren’t capped, I’m betting they were braced; and I’d also put money down on the fact that Prejean has, at some point, performed other “unnatural” acts with her organs like chewing gum, wearing eye-glasses, enjoying a Diet Coke or two or even… um… er, well, you get the idea.
So, Carrie, you may find full civil equality for all Americans to be “unnatural” and not “Biblically correct,” but, frankly, neither are your Jugs for Jesus and your Caps for Christ. “No Offense.” See Brian Normoyle: Gathering Storm: Miss California Trying to Redefine Traditional Breasts for the Rest of Us
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/brian-normoyl…
Zimbabwe Gay rights debate brews a storm, Anglican preist: Gays ‘had to be completely destroyed, ‘ we are ‘a Christian nation’
They, homosexuals, had to be completely destroyed,” he said.
“Poofters must know that we are a Christian nation,” said Tawanda Gumbo of Kuwadzana. “They chose to be gay.
Forget this nonsense about them being born gay.
If it is true that some people are born gay then we should see some animals that are attracted to the same sex as well.
The fact that there are no gay cattle, elephants, etc, shows it’s something that people choose to do, something that is not natural, something that is against God’s will.”
Stella Mugwengwe
See Zimbabwe Gay rights debate brews a storm on new Constitution
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/zimbabwe-gay-…
Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight in Maine
Southern York County was well represented Wednesday, April 22, among the proponents of a gay marriage bill who attended a public hearing at the Augusta Civic Center.
“It’s been incredibly moving,” said Kittery Point resident Lane Williamson, whose lesbian daughter was married in Massachusetts to her longtime partner. “There’s a huge pro-civil rights group here, from tiny babies to grandparents.”
Williamson, who also has a heterosexual married daughter, said she has long fought for women’s and civil rights.
“Marriage is a civil right and therefore each of my daughters has a right to be married,” she said. “If Vermont can do it (pass a gay marriage law) and Iowa can do it, for goodness sake, then Maine had better. I’m quite certain that the bill will pass.”
She and others in attendance at the hearing talked of seeing a “sea of red” among those in the audience — as the pro-bill organization Equality Maine asked proponents to wear red clothing. Of the estimated 4,000 to 5,000 in attendance, they said, it appeared from the clothing that about two-thirds of those attending favored the bill.
That was particularly gratifying for Mary Breen, who lives with her partner in South Berwick and owns a business in Ogunquit, as well as Marsha Clegg of Wells, who has been in a committed relationship with her partner for 14 years.
Breen said she was in Augusta because, “I feel if I don’t stand up for my civil rights, why should anyone else? There’s strength in numbers and I would feel badly if I wasn’t there to be counted.” She said she and her partner of almost four years “want to be married, but we want to be married in Maine, because that’s our home. We’re not asking anyone to change their religion. We just want a level playing field.”
Like others who attended, she said both sides had been very respectful and there had not been any violence or rowdiness. She said she has had to suck it up when hearing opponents call homosexuals “wrong and perverse” and using the Bible to make the point. But on the other hand, “it’s been very encouraging and empowering to hear people who are supportive. It makes all of us feel stronger.”
See Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight York Weekly
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/tears-resolve…
Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight
AUGUSTA, Maine — Southern York County was well represented Wednesday among the proponents of a gay marriage bill who attended a public hearing at the Augusta Civic Center.
“It’s been incredibly moving,” said Kittery Point resident Lane Williamson, whose lesbian daughter was married in Massachusetts to her longtime partner. “There’s a huge pro-civil rights group here, from tiny babies to grandparents.”
Williamson, who also has a heterosexual married daughter, said she has long fought for women’s rights and civil rights.
“Marriage is a civil right and therefore each of my daughters has a right to be married,” she said. “If Vermont can do it (pass a gay marriage law) and Iowa can do it, for goodness sake, then Maine had better. I’m quite certain that the bill will pass.”
She and others in attendance Wednesday talked of seeing a “sea of red” among those in the audience — as the pro-bill organization Equality Maine asked proponents to wear red clothing. Of the estimated 4,000 to 5,000 in attendance, they said, it appeared from the clothing that about two-thirds of those attending favored the bill.
That was particularly gratifying for Mary Breen, who lives with her partner in South Berwick and owns a business in Ogunquit, as well as Marsha Clegg of Wells, who has been in a committed relationship with her partner for 14 years.
Breen said she was in Augusta because, “I feel if I don’t stand up for my civil rights, why should anyone else? There’s strength in numbers and I would feel badly if I wasn’t there to be counted.” She said she and her partner of almost four years “want to be married, but we want to be married in Maine, because that’s our home. We’re not asking anyone to change their religion. We just want a level playing field.”
Like others who attended, she said both sides had been very respectful and there had not been any violence or rowdiness. She said she has had to suck it up when hearing opponents call homosexuals “wrong and perverse” and using the Bible to make the point. But on the other hand, “it’s been very encouraging and empowering to hear people who are supportive. It makes all of us feel stronger.”
For Clegg, Wednesday’s hearing was the result of hard work on the part of Equality Maine, for which she has volunteered during the past year.
“This is real important to us. It’s such a civil right. Right now, I feel like I’m separate and not equal,” she said. Civil unions, like New Hampshire currently allows, “are a failed experiment. It was like they threw us a bone and said, ‘That should be good enough for them.’”
See Tears, resolve for gay marriage fight York Weekly
| Published by |
|
Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/tears-resolve…
