When Life Hands You Anti-Gay Lemons…
Tempe, Arizona’s Faithful Word Baptist Church has a relatively small congregation (less than 200 people), but its pastor, Steven L. Anderson, gets substantial media coverage because of his provocative beliefs. He has, in the past, admitted to praying for the death of President Barack Obama and has said that women should never be allowed to preach the word of God in a church. Most recently, Anderson delivered a sermon to his congregation in which he expressed his virtual apoplexy over the promotion of World AIDS Day. This prompted him to perpetuate the usual, consistently debunked myths that homosexuals choose to be gay and all gay people are pedophiles. Then Pastor Anderson proudly proclaimed that he had discovered the cure for AIDS. He promised that humanity could have an “AIDS-free world by Christmas” if the government would simply adhere to his interpretation of the biblical law of the land by executing all homosexuals.

This is not only outrageous but ignorant. Anderson has apparently never heard of the continent of Africa, where roughly 25 million people, the majority of them heterosexual women and children, are living with HIV. This figure accounts for nearly 70 percent of the global total of cases of HIV/AIDS. Executing all homosexuals would barely scratch the surface of the worldwide AIDS epidemic. World AIDS Day isn’t just about the gay community. It’s about finding a much-needed cure for a devastating disease that affects tens of millions of people. However, facts and reason don’t matter much to people like Pastor Anderson.

This kind of nonsense has little to no effect on me. At my age, I doubt there’s anything anyone can say to, or about, the LGBT community that I haven’t already heard. However, I do often wonder what effect incendiary rhetoric like Pastor Anderson’s has on younger gay people who are struggling with coming out. Coincidentally, in a subsequent interview about his sermon, Pastor Anderson was asked how he would react if he had a gay child himself. After insisting it could never happen, Pastor Anderson likened it to discovering that his daughter is an axe murderer, or that his son had grown up to be the next Adolf Hitler, and simply said he would have nothing to do with the child. Now, that bothers me. First of all, Anderson’s comparison is laughably fallacious. More importantly, such a declaration doesn’t show strength of conviction on Anderson’s part. It only shows a detrimental weakness as a parent and as a human being. I can’t imagine how any responsible and rational adult could do something as cowardly and narcissistic as turning their back on their own child simply because the child is gay. Yet it happens all the time. It’s detestable.

After viewing his sermon and interview, in honor of Pastor Steven L. Anderson, I made donations to a center here in New York City that provides assistance to homeless LGBT youths, and to an organization that delivers meals to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses. Personally, it was my attempt to turn a negative into a positive. It gives me a little peace of mind, and hopefully it will help someone have a happier holiday. I also requested that letters of acknowledgement be sent to Pastor Anderson at his church’s address. Gee, I hope he gets them and comes to the realization that his message of hate and abandonment has, on some level, backfired. Maybe he will even be a little disappointed. And that would be the best Christmas gift ever!

www.huffingtonpost.com/walt-hawkins/when-life-hands-you-antig_b_6326212.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Neil Patrick Harris shares details in book about secretive process of conceiving his twins

‘It was weird and interesting writing about that publicly after we spent so much time trying to be private about it’

read more

gregh

www.gaystarnews.com/article/neil-patrick-harris-shares-details-book-about-secretive-process-conceiving-his-twins171214

Growing Number of Openly-Queer, Celibate Catholics Finding Acceptance In Online Communities

Charles Pulliam-Moore

www.towleroad.com/2014/12/celibate-catholics.html

Two Prominent Ferguson Protesters Get Engaged
ST. LOUIS — Two demonstrators who met while protesting in Ferguson, Missouri, following the Aug. 9 death of Michael Brown are getting married.

Alexis Templeton, 20, and Brittany Ferrell, 25, two of the co-founders of Millennial Activists United, first met in August at protests for police accountability after Brown was killed by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. The two are also both plaintiffs in a federal court case against law enforcement agencies over their heavy-handed response to demonstrations.

After getting to know each other at the protests, the two started dating. On Tuesday afternoon, Templeton formally proposed to Ferrell at City Hall, where the couple then picked up a marriage license.

A number of activists and members of the media showed up to watch the proposal. Ferrell told the crowd that she had suggested to Ferrell on Monday that they get engaged. They will hold a formal ceremony soon, she added; they have not yet set a date, but their certificate, which still needs signatures from witnesses and an ordained minister in order to become binding, expires in 30 days.

With so many protesters active on social media, the proceedings were well-documented on Twitter, Vine and via livestream. Several people showed up after seeing the news on Twitter, including St. Louis City Counselor Winston Calvert. After the couple signed their marriage license, people chanted, “Black love matters” inside the city hall office.

“She’d made me happy for 130 days, and I want to make her happy for the rest of her life,” Templeton told the crowd.

Templeton’s sister, Bre, who is 23, said she didn’t know Templeton was interested in Ferrell until mid-September.

“Alex came up and sat with my son and she fed him,” she said. “She was like, ‘Dude, I got a crush.’ I was like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’ And she was like, ‘No, I got a crush on a girl.’ I asked her how she felt about it and she said good. I asked her if she wanted to talk about it and she said no.” Alexis laughed as Bre recalled the conversation.

Jamell Spann, a 21-year-old also from Ferguson, played the role of best man during the proposal.

“You are looking at two people that stood shoulder to shoulder, faced rubber bullets, tear gas and discrimination. … To be a black woman in America is an unfathomably deep struggle to go through day in and day out. And being a lesbian black woman in America — you just see how each level compounds,” Spann said. “These two women represent the idea of freedom. They represent the idea of love and that black lives matter and have power and passion. It comes full circle; it’s like watching poetry write itself.”

Rae, 23, a bartender from St. Louis who declined to give her last name, said she came to City Hall because she saw a tweet from Ferrell’s account and thought there was going to be a demonstration. A number of police officers seemed to be under the same impression, standing near the building’s entrance and in the lobby as the group gathered inside.

“I was in the mindset that we were going to shut shit down. I walked in and seen a small group of people and thought I was early,” she said. She soon saw DeRay McKesson, another prominent protester, and asked him what was happening.

“He said we weren’t shutting anything down. I told him about Brittany tweeting be here at 2 p.m., and he told me she and Alexis were getting married today,” she said. “I got excited and I hugged him and my entire demeanor changed.”

Some images from today below:

Additional reporting by Ryan J. Reilly in Washington, D.C.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/16/ferguson-protesters-married_n_6336184.html?utm_hp_ref=gay-voices&ir=Gay+Voices

Suspects in attack against gay couple in Philadelphia ordered to stand trial

Kathryn Knott, Philip Williams and Kevin Harrigan will be tried as a group for on aggravated assault, criminal conspiracy and other charges

read more

gregh

www.gaystarnews.com/article/suspects-attack-against-gay-couple-philadelphia-ordered-stand-trial161214

Philly Gay Bashing Suspects Held On All Charges, Trial Set For Early January

The three violent homophobic assailants charged with beating a gay couple unconscious in an unprovoked gay bashing in Philadelphia on September 11th –Kevin Harrigan, Kathryn Knott, and Philip Williams — appeared Tuesday before Judge Charles Hayden for a preliminary hearing in order to determine if there was enough evidence to proceed to trial on charges of felony assault and conspiracy, among other counts.

Judge Hayden confirmed that yes, the evidence is compelling enough to go to trial. Formal arraignment in Common Pleas Court is scheduled for January 6th.

During an intense day of witness examination, Geoff Nagle testified what he’d seen from his nearby third floor window — initially “a woman in the group pointing her finger at someone and that the person she was pointing her finger at then pushed her hand away.”

Then things “took a drastic turn” when he saw “one of the men in the group put a man in a headlock and that there were punches thrown. He said that he heard cursing and yelling in male and female voices, including language such as “fucking faggot.”

Zachary Hesse, one of two victims in the case, was next to take the stand. He said, “that when the pair encountered the group at 16th and Chancellor, Harrigan asked, “Is that your fucking boyfriend?” “I said, ‘Yeah, that is my fucking boyfriend,” he testified. “‘Do you have a problem with that?’” Then he testified that Harrigan said, “‘So you’re a dirty fucking faggot?’ So I approached him and said, ‘Maybe I am a dirty fucking faggot.’ He pushed me, I pushed him.’”

Hesse identified “Harrigan as the man who first hit him in the head, Knott as the woman who “smacked or hit” him in the head and called him a “fucking faggot,” and Williams as the man who then hit Hesse again.”

Hesse’s boyfriend took the worst of the blows, resulting in two broken cheek bones requiring his jaw to be wired shut for nearly two months.

The trio’s lawyers asked the judge to “dismiss the most serious charges and remand the case back to Municipal Court, but Hayden disagreed, saying that the prosecution had met its burden for the preliminary hearing. He then wished all three of the defendants ‘good luck.’”

via PhillyMag

Related Stories

Suspected Philly Gay Bashers Positively ID’d By Victims, Get December Court Date

Violent Homophobes Charged In Philly Gay Bashing Are Released On Bail

Gay Couple Attacked By “Intoxicated, Well Dressed” Gang Of Violent Heterosexuals In Philadelphia

Dan Tracer

feedproxy.google.com/~r/queerty2/~3/tIIA4keAa7E/philly-gay-bashing-suspects-held-on-all-charges-trial-set-for-early-january-20141216

66 Tracks Find a Place in the Annual 'Pop Danthology' Mash-Up: VIDEO

Andy Towle

www.towleroad.com/2014/12/danthology.html