MS Lawmaker Andy Gipson Says Gays Spread Disease, Suggest They Should Be Put to Death

Mississippi state Representative Andy Gipson attacked gays on his Facebook page following Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage earlier this week, Unity MS reports.

Wrote Gipson in a Facebook post:

Been a lot of press on Obama’s opinion on “homosexual marriage.” The only opinion that counts is God’s: see Romans 1:26-28 and Leviticus 20:13. Anyway you slice it, it is sin. Not to mention horrific social policy.

The Leviticus passage is the one suggesting that gay people be put to death.

He followed that up with a clarification to a commenter in the same thread:

Sorry I’ve been busy and not had a chance to reply. David, in addition to the basic principal that it is morally wrong, here are three social reasons it’s horrific social policy: 1) Unnatural behavior which results in disease, not the least of which is its high association with the development and spread of HIV/AIDS; 2) Confusing behavior which is harmful to children who have a deep need to understand the proper role of men and women in society and the important differences between men and women, and fathers and mothers; and 3) Undermines the longstanding definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, a definition which has been key to all aspects of social order and prosperity. Anytime that definition is weakened our culture is also weakened. And yes, that is also true for other conduct which weakens marriage’s importance in society.

Writes Unity MS, where you can find Gipson's contact information: "Mr. Gipson needs to realize he represents all of his constituents. He should not cherry-pick which constituents he wants to work for. He should also realize his positions are neither popular nor Republican. LGBT individuals, couples, and families help pay Gipson’s salary. It’s important that he remember that."

Richard Branson For UK Same Sex Marriage

Rumors Surface About Queen Latifah Coming Out At Long Beach Pride

TruthQuake is claiming the singer-actress-spokesmodel “is going to announce publicly that she is lesbian” from the stage.

“Queen Latifah wants to come out at Pride because it’s a place where people will appreciate her showing her support of the LGBT community,” said the insider source close to the actress/rapper/singer. 

“She has a lot of gay and bi fans. They know she’s lesbian, and they love that she’s so successful, but they’ll be thrilled when she finally ‘comes out’ publicly”

“People in the LGBT community don’t want to push her because they know it’s not easy facing other people who you think may judge you badly, and if you’re famous there are even more people to judge. But, they’ll be thrilled to know she’s finally announcing it.”

Maryland High Court Recognizes Gay Divorce

As opponents of same-sex marriage work to overturn the not-yet-in-effect marriage equality law in Maryland, the state's highest court is recognizing gay divorces, for those couples married in other states, the AP reports:

The Court of Appeals issued the ruling Friday that couples who have a valid marriage from another state can divorce in Maryland. The ruling says Maryland courts should withhold recognition of a valid foreign marriage only if that marriage is “repugnant” to state public policy. The court says the threshold is a high bar that has not been met in the case that it ruled on.

The case involved two women who were married in California and denied a divorce in 2010 by a Maryland judge. Lawyers for the women told the Court of Appeals that is would be unprecedented for the state not to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere.

Paul Cameron, the virulently anti-gay “researcher” whose name is synonymous with discredited and “consistent misrepresentation of sociological research,” tells journalist David Pakman that he was attracted to men when he was a boy as young as three, after being raped by a man, but he claims he grew out of it by the age of eight or nine. Dr. Cameron adds that on a scale of one to one hundred, with zero being heterosexual and one hundred being homosexual, he’s negative one hundred.

On Monday, The New Civil Rights Movement reported that Dr. Cameron had suggested President Obama may be gay, said gays should be jailed, and claimed the goal of gay people is to ensure every boy and girl be raped at least once.

‘Sodomy Is Not A Civil Right’

Republican lawmaker, Del. Robert G. Marshall, told CNN that ”Sodomy is not a civil right,” offering the false statement as his defense for blocking the judicial nomination of an openly-gay veteran. Sodomy was made legal by the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003.

As The New Civil Rights Movement reported Tuesday, Marshall led a hoard of conservative Republicans to vote against Tracy Thorne-Begland, an openly-gay prosecutor serving as Deputy Commonwealth Major Crimes Attorney for the past 12 years for the city of Richmond. Thorne-Begland, who served in the military, and his same-sex partner, Michael Thorne-Begland (an attorney at Philip Morris) are raising their young twins together.

U.S. Senate panel approves same-sex partner benefits for federal workers

A U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday approved legislation that would allow same-sex partners of federal employees to receive employment benefits.

The bill — Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act (DPBO) — was approved by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on a voice vote.

The bill would provide benefits for same-sex domestic partners of federal civilian employees on the same basis as spousal benefits, including participation in retirement programs, life and health insurance benefits, and family and medical leave.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the bill’s chief sponsor, said the bill “has nothing to do with same-sex marriage,” and called the timing of the hearing — exactly one week after President Obama’s announcement supporting marriage equality — coincidental.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. Tweets Support For Obama's Stance on Gay Marriage

As USA Today and other media outlets are reporting, U.S. fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr. tweeted his support for President Obama's endorsement of marriage equality yesterday yesterday:

@FloydMayweather
Floyd Mayweather

I stand behind President Obama & support gay marriage. I'm an American citizen & I believe people should live their life the way they want.

May 16, 2012 8:54 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama

Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.
       

The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.

“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Mr. Ricketts is increasingly putting his fortune to work in conservative politics.

The $10 million plan, one of several being studied by Mr. Ricketts, includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright, who espouses what is known as “black liberation theology.”

The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”

A copy of a detailed advertising plan was obtained by The New York Times through a person not connected to the proposal who was alarmed by its tone. It is titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.”

HIV Home Test Approved

A federal committee unanimously approved over-the-counter sale of a take-home rapid HIV test, paving the way for the product’s approval by the FDA. “We believe we are at a deciding moment in the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic. The key to that begins with getting them tested” said Black AIDS Institute director Phil Wilson. Any positive results from the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test would be confirmed by a lab

GOP Rep. Lankford Tries To Explain Comments About Firing Gay People

Minnesota United Releases New Ad About Gay Marriage Fight

Gay Marriage "may cost us our lives"

"The issue has flared since US President Barack Obama backed gay marriage last week. Both Prime Minister John Key and Labour leader David Shearer have indicated they would not stand in the way of moves to allow gay marriage in New Zealand. Key today indicated he would be 'more than happy' to vote for the first reading of a bill allowing gay marriage."

Gay 'Days' Character Finally Comes Out To Parents

It's the moment many Days Of Our Lives fans have been waiting for: Will Horton finally came out to his parents and, in a soap opera twist, the presumptive parental reactions were reversed: daddy Lucas becomes the supportive parent and mama Sami totally flips out.

Gay Marriage Only Brings ‘Disease And Suffering’

Mitt Romney Debt Speech Ignores Key Facts

When Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney decried the "prairie fire" of U.S. debt Tuesday, he ignored some of the sparks that set it ablaze. One was the Great Recession that took hold before Barack Obama became president. That landmark event went unmentioned in Romney's speech. Another was a series of Bush-era tax cuts that Romney wants to follow with even lower rates. Instead he laid the blame on Obama, a president who has certainly increased the nation's eye-popping debt — but not, as Romney claimed, by nearly as much as all other presidents combined. A look at some of Romney's assertions and how they compare with the facts: ___ ROMNEY: "America counted on President Obama to rescue the economy, tame the deficit and help create jobs. Instead, he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of your dollars to the companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined." THE FACTS. Hardly. Presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush ran the national debt up to $10.62 trillion, the amount it was on the day Obama took office. Today, it is $15.67 trillion, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt. So it has gone up by $5.05 trillion under Obama. That's roughly half of the amount amassed by all the other presidents combined. In short, the debt has gone up by about half under Obama. Under Ronald Reagan, it tripled. ___ ROMNEY: "I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno. We will stop borrowing unfathomable sums of money we can't even imagine, from foreign countries we'll never even visit. I will bring us together to put out the fire." THE FACTS: Romney's tax and spending plans don't support his vow to dampen the debt fire. He proposes to cut taxes and expand the armed forces, putting yet more stress on the budget, and his promise to slash domestic spending isn't backed by the big specifics. Romney's tax plan would cut the top income tax rate to 28 percent from 35 percent and other rates by 20 percent each. He says he'd broaden the tax base and eliminate many deductions in the process, but details are missing. A study by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concluded earlier this year that Romney's plans would not make a dent in deficits, and could worsen them considerably. That study was done before Romney upped his tax cuts, inviting even deeper debt. That's not to say he can't at some point lay out the spending cuts necessary to achieve his aims. But he would have to slash domestic programs by more than 20 percent — far more than the 5 percent in immediate cuts he has proposed. It is nearly unthinkable that Congress would approve the evisceration of basic federal functions such as food inspection, air traffic control, the Border Patrol, FBI, grants to local governments, health research, housing and heating aid for the poor, food aid for pregnant women, national parks and much more. Nowhere in Tuesday's speech was there a new idea of how Romney would accomplish the promised deficit reduction. He spoke generally of reforming Social Security and Medicare, eliminating duplicative government programs, and transferring some functions to the states or the private sector, adding that he would "streamline everything that's left." The closest he has come to laying out a specific spending plan has been in his endorsement of the budget blueprint passed this year by House Republicans, which also fails to produce his promised deficit reductions. ___ ROMNEY: "The people of Iowa and America have watched President Obama for nearly four years, much of that time with Congress controlled by his own party. And rather than put out the spending fire, he has fed the fire. He has spent more and borrowed more. ... When you add up his policies, this president has increased the national debt by $5 trillion." THE FACTS: Much of the increase in the debt is due to lower tax revenues from depressed corporate and individual incomes and high joblessness in the worst recession since the Great Depression. The recession officially began in December 2007, when George W. Bush was president and the national debt stood at just over $9 trillion. Financial bailouts, stimulus programs and auto rescue spending that started under Bush and continued under Obama contributed to the run-up of the debt. But so did the Bush-era tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003. With bipartisan support, Congress has extended the tax cuts until the end of this year, and Romney's proposals for big cuts of his own would risk another squeeze on revenue. To be sure, Obama as a presidential candidate in 2008 was just as eager as Romney is now to pin blame for mounting debt on a president from the other party. Ignoring economic circumstances and the role of both parties in Congress, Obama accused President George W. Bush in that campaign of driving up debt by $4 trillion "by his lonesome" and taking out "a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children."

Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III speaks out about Marriage Equality

Civil Union are Not Sufficient

Obama Gay Marriage Support More Popular Among Blacks & Latinos Than Whites

A new poll just released today finds that President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage equality is actually more popular among Blacks and Hispanics than among whites. Overall, 45% of whites view the President’s support of marriage equality favorably, while 47% of Hispanics do, and 54% of Blacks do as well. “One notable difference is by race. Just 41 percent of African-Americans supported gay marriage in ABC/Post polls in mid-2011 and early 2012. Yet 54 percent express a favorable view of his position on the issue in this poll – suggesting that, for some, allegiance to Obama may have prompted a rethink on the issue itself,” notes Langer Research, who performed the poll for ABC News,

Raising Debt Limit Is An 'Action-Forcing Event'

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) sees the debt ceiling as an "action-forcing event" where he will insist on cuts greater than the increase, setting up a legislative fight similar to the one that paralyzed Congress last summer. Boehner calls the statutory debt limit as the "only avenue" to solve "our structural fiscal imbalance," according to prepared remarks to be delivered at the Peter G. Peterson Fiscal Summit and released to the Washington Post.

A Boehner aide told the Post that tax increases are still off the table. "We shouldn’t dread the debt limit," Boehner says. "We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction."

Speaking at the conference, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned Boehner on the debt limit. "This commitment to meet the obligations of the nation, this commitment to protect the creditworthiness of the country, is a fundamental commitment that you can never call into question or violate," he said, according to The Hill. He said he hopes Congress will raise the debt limit "without the drama and the pain and the damage they caused the country last July."

Historically, raising the debt limit had not been a mechanism to force major policy changes and had passed easily with partisan grumblings about the level of debt. However, congressional Republicans in 2010 insisted on adding major cuts to an increase in the debt limit, raising the specter of default. The deal finally reached provided a $2.4 trillion increase in the debt limit with $2.4 trillion in cuts over 10 years.

A variety of spending cuts and tax increases take effect shortly after the debt ceiling is expected to be reached, potentially setting up a battle worse than last summer. Geithner said in February said that he expects that the debt ceiling will be hit sometime between Sept. 30, 2012 and the end of the year. The Bush-era tax cuts also expire at the end of 2012, and $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to defense spending and Medicare as part of the debt ceiling deal take effect in 2013.

Staffers leaving Shorter University over required anti-gay lifestyle statement

A tenured librarian at Shorter University is the latest among nearly 60 staff members to leave the Christian liberal arts college over the school’s ban on gay employees.

Michael Wilson, a 14 year employee at Shorter, resigned last week after refusing to sign a required “Personal Lifestyle Statement” against homosexuality.

Last October, the college announced a policy to require its more than 200 employees to sign the pledge against homosexuality, adultery, premarital sex, drug use and drinking in public.
The “lifestyle statement” also requires faculty to be active members of a local church, and is one of several steps the university has taken to intensify its Christian identity after the Georgia Baptist Convention began asserting more control over the campus six years ago.

The requirement has provoked an uproar among faculty, alumni and observers, reported the website Inside Higher Ed.

Before the new contracts were circulated, more than 50 members of the faculty and staff who felt they could not abide by its rules, or did not feel they should have to, resigned. Wilson stayed.
But when he was offered his contract for the academic year, he signed and returned it, but with one line crossed out: “I reject as acceptable all sexual activity not in agreement with the Bible, including, but not limited to, premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality.”

“It’s a matter of conscience,” Wilson said.

Wilson is one of nearly 60 staff members who are leaving Shorter because of policy changes at the school, according to Save Our Shorter, a group fighting to “reveal the truth about what is happening on the Shorter campus.”

Several departments, including science and the fine arts, have been “eviscerated,” Wilson said.
The university’s president, Don Dowless, said in October that any staffer not signing the agreement faces immediate termination.

Pennsylvania High School Teacher Shows Video Mocking Gay Student and His Transgender Prom Date

Pope Tells Catholics To Ignore The Bible, Become Political

Pope Benedict XVI this week told Catholics they should become more political, ignoring what the Bible teaches about politics. Speaking in Tuscany, the Pope urged the melding of Church and State, and told listeners to be “the engine of society in promoting peace through justice.”

R.I. governor orders state recognition of legally married same-sex couples

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee on Monday issued an executive order directing state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed out of state as legal, and to treat married same-sex couples in the same manner as married heterosexual couples.