hypocrisy

The first time I heard the name Elna Baker was on the "Matchmakers" episode of This American Life radio show.  Her segment on working for FAO Schwartz is well worth listening to: The beginning makes me laugh hard, and then it packs a sucker-punch of commentary on American racism and classism.  Touched by Elna Baker's humor and poignancy, I went looking for her personal website, which has clips of her telling stories.  Watching her first video clip, then, I was surprised to learn that Elna Baker is also a practicing Mormon committed to virginity-until-marriage.  As she says of her  dating experience for the laugh-line, "As a Mormon, I don't believe in having sex, and eventually, as a guy, he didn't believe in that.  So atheists do have beliefs."

Malalai Joya is an Afghan politician who has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan."  As an elected member of the Wolesi Jirga from Farah province, she has publicly denounced the presence of what she considers warlords and war criminals in the parliament.  She is the author of "A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice"

Joya: US backed fundamentalism is at the root of the Afghan problem; foreign troops should get out now

So the Playgirl shots of Levi Johnston were released yesterday.  I have to admit that I, like Jolie du Pre, have really been looking forward to them. ...Except, the couple pictures that have been released without charge aren't too exciting.

Surely relevantly, I'm sick to death of hearing about his ex-future-mother-in-law, whom I like to refer to either as "Bible Spice" or "Caribou Barbie." (I wish I could take credit for coming up with either.) For weeks, my Google Reader has been flooded with articles exposing the arch-conservative's hypocrisy, lies, and incompetence - sometimes with good satire. And honestly, I can't pay attention anymore. In her ideology, liberals are the direct tools of Satan, so the frothing wrath of liberals only helps her. All I want is for her to fade back into obscurity where she belongs, and I already regret this post's collaboration in keeping her famous.

My would-be Facebook friend wrote to me again yesterday.  I say "would-be", because were it not for the tiny detail that I am a transsexual woman romantically involved with another transsexual woman, and the minor aside that this would-be friend is a "bible-believing Christian" who thinks I have made a "sinful lifestyle choice", we might actually be friends.

Aside from this detail, and the fact that I am also a human rights activist for the pink community, I might be friends with a lot of people who think along the same lines as her, but who might otherwise not actually wish me harmed, ill or dead.

She doesn't seem a bad sort though, this disembodied voice that pops into my inbox every so often just to let me know that the people my articles are aimed at, actually do read them from time to time - and are apparently "sensitive" to them.

"I know you mean no harm to what you call sincere people," She says, "but I am afraid that in your writings you are creating a conception that all people are good except bible believing Christians.  I am a bible believing christian and it pains me when people create ungrounded perceptions of us..... "

Hmm.

Two thousand years ago a man came to Earth who was called the "Messiah", and who sought to reconcile God and Humanity.  The religious called him the "Son of God" and the "Son of Man" and also the "New Covenant", by which the sins of all were wiped clean with his blood.  Oddly enough, there are those today who call themselves his followers and him "King Jesus" while "evangelizing" to transform the world into perfect little sinless utopias - and who, by stark contrast also reject completely that which he stood for.

I have often found it strange, if not a little gory that blood is such a recurring theme in the Christian faith - and even more disappointing that it is being supplemented by fresh blood in modern times.

He called people to love others and to show love to others - as they love themselves.  He called people to forgive each other for wrongs done to them and not to seek revenge.  He encouraged people to do unto others as they would have done to themselves and I have to wonder if they really hate themselves that much?  I say this, because if the way they treat others - or would have done to them, then if they are applying this principle as they believe the Son of God commanded them to do, then logically they cannot be very fond of themselves. Not at all.

You have to wonder.

October 29, 2009
Contact: Kapya Kaoma or Pam Chamberlain, 617-666-5300

In March 2008, U.S. evangelical leader Rick Warren told Ugandans that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. One year later, U.S. conservative evangelical and Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively (a resident of Massachusetts) addressed the Family Life Network and Ugandan members of Parliament in March 2009, saying legalizing homosexuality is akin to legalizing "the molestation of children or having sex with animals."

That March meeting launched a campaign that has led directly to today, when the Ugandan legislature is debating an anti-gay bill that would lead to life imprisonment for gay sex, and death for those having same sex relations if they are HIV positive or having sex with someone under 18. Heterosexuals would have no such restrictions. This law, which would also criminalize any human rights organizing for LGBT rights, could be passed any day.