Pull Your Pants Up!

Darian writes about a campaign by Dooney Da Priest and his tactic in trying to get people to stop sagging their pants:

If you allow yourself to get caught up in the hard beat of this song when you hear it then it’s very possible to miss the homophobic punches by Dooney Da Priest in an attempt to scare the young men “straight” who’ve adopted sagging as their personal style. In one verse and a chorus he questions their masculinity, accuses them of being gay and on the down low and is personally offended along with all of the other “real men” at the sight of their boxers outside of their pants.

I guess when legislation fails to criminalize sagging and stern lectures from authority figures fall on deaf ears the only option left is to pull the gay card. What’s sad is this campaign has good intentions but it relies on stereotypes and fear to achieve the desired result.

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Gay Bashing and Hate Crimes

Terrance DC, at Pam’s House Blend, blogs about the recent gay bashing against Michael Wrenn:

Part of the reason I started the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia Project was to make information about the kind of hate crimes that have been committed against LGBT people more widely available, because that I think the facts are the most powerful resource we have in terms of making it clear what the hate crimes bill is really about.

I’m a couple of days late on this one, but I while catching up with my blog reading, I came across a story that underscores another aspect of the hate crimes bill. Jim Burroway posted the full text of the bill at Box Turtle Bulletin a while back. He also challenged the opposition to post the text of the bill on their sites, and point out where it threatens their religious beliefs or religious speech. To date, none of them have taken up that challenge that I know of, but I’ll refer to his post to show how the hate crimes bill might come into play, when police fail to investigate or report a hate crime.

Hathor Legacy and Straight White Women

BetaCandy, who blogs at Blind Privilege, came to  a certain realization of an institute she administers for that studies the portrayals of women in the media:

Hathor was always intended to be about women and how they are marginalized. It wasn’t that I didn’t care how other people – people of color, queer people, etc. – were treated by the media. I’m very interested in those issues, too. I was just sticking to the issue of women because it’s where my expertise lies.

A few months ago, it hit me: some women are queer. Some women are of color. If you don’t cover them, it’s not a feminist media site. It’s just a site about white heterosexual women, and how we get marginalized.

The Death of a Reverend

Pam blogs about the death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell in her blog Pam’s House Blend:

It’s sad to hear, as of last week (in an interview with CNN), he stood by his 2001 comments that gays, lesbians, pro-choice advocates and feminists were to blame for 9/11.

I wish that Reverend Falwell, who at one time was against integration and interracial marriage, could have lived long enough to see full LGBT equality finally come to pass. We all know that it will prove him terribly wrong once again — that treating one group of citizens the same as everyone else isn’t a threat to marriage, the American family or this country.

Looking for a Moral Leader? Sorry, He’s Busy Bashing Gays and Liberals

Wayne Besen blogs about Nigerian Anglican Bishop Peter J Akinola and the situation in Nigeria and the U. S. Episcopal Church:

Anglican Archbishop Peter J Akinola is perfectly situated to step in and fill this role. Not only is he a local powerbroker, he is also the leader of the largest province in the worldwide Anglican Church. This offers Akinola a unique international platform to draw attention to the electoral sabotage that is ripping apart the very soul of Nigeria.

But, instead of staying in Nigeria this week to bring his convulsing country together, he is flying to the comfy confines of Virginia to tear the Anglican Church apart. While his country is on the verge of a Constitutional conflagration, the Nigerian archbishop is burning with rage because in 2003 the Episcopal Church installed openly gay V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

Looking for a Moral Leader? Sorry, He’s Busy Bashing Gays and Liberals

Wayne Besen blogs about Nigerian Anglican Bishop Peter J Akinola and the situation in Nigeria and the U. S. Episcopal Church:

Anglican Archbishop Peter J Akinola is perfectly situated to step in and fill this role. Not only is he a local powerbroker, he is also the leader of the largest province in the worldwide Anglican Church. This offers Akinola a unique international platform to draw attention to the electoral sabotage that is ripping apart the very soul of Nigeria.

But, instead of staying in Nigeria this week to bring his convulsing country together, he is flying to the comfy confines of Virginia to tear the Anglican Church apart. While his country is on the verge of a Constitutional conflagration, the Nigerian archbishop is burning with rage because in 2003 the Episcopal Church installed openly gay V. Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire.

Coco Dorm Controversy

Darian Aaron, of the blog Living Out Loud with Darian, writes about promescuity and gay culture:

In the wake of the latest Coco Dorm controversy and a recent outing to see the sexually driven film Boy Culture (which is excellent by the way), I’ve been pondering over the widely held belief that all gay men are promiscuous. You’ve heard people say before that being gay is all about sex and that gay men cannot maintain long -lasting relationships…

So to say that all gay men are promiscious is an unfair generalization. How many of us have straight male friends who are constantly competing to see how many women they’ve slept with; as if they’re going to get a trophy for being in the triple digits? This behavior is not only condoned in many circles but it is considered an example of true masculinity.

Queer Kid of Color writes:

Coco Dorm (operated by the owners of Flavalife/men) is in yet another brawl with the Health Department. I don’t give a fuck how much money you make off of videos showcasing men bare backing; no money in the world can cure any of these men if they are infected. I don’t like the powers that be at Coco Dorm and I commend Darian, Jasmyne Cannick and the other bloggers who are taking the initiative in raising awareness on what these disgusting savages are doing.

Jasmyne Cannick blogs:

There’s a lot of money to be made in sex, and gay male sex at that. But what’s the cost? Our lives? And I am posing the question because like I said, I know people who thrown these types of parties here in Los Angeles and while I have never gone, friends of mine have and it bothers me because they’re playing Russian Roulette.

I suspect that like with the down low, the South Florida story tonight may spark a national discussion on the sexual practices of gay men, and we will be right smack dab in the middle of it. And like with the down low, it will get labeled as a Black thing, when we all know that bath houses from here to Japan, cater to white gay men among others.

Bernie, of the blog Bejata, states:

I am a Black gay man who loves my Black gay brothers unconditionally. I am always concerned about our collective well-being. I can’t sit idly by, staring at a video image, knowing the people I’m watching may be unnecessarily putting themselves at risk of infectious disease while someone else makes money off of it. That’s not sexy. That’s not hot.

Instead of trying to silence bloggers for writing about what’s going on, perhaps Flavaworks should spend more time really doing something to keep their models safe.

The Virginia Tech Killer: Its da fault of dem gays!

Tom blogs about a headline he saw for The Globe, a national tabloid newspaper, which read “Killer’s Secrete Gay Life: What Really Drove Him to Kill,” in the blog tom’s music film ohio politics n stuff:

Who will buy this magazine because of the headline? Many buy the tabloids for humor because of the preposterousness of it all. But this isn’t funny. The more likely readers are those who are looking for confirmation that gay people are evil and depraved.

Cho Seung-Hui mentioned in his ramblings of his disdain for being bullied — including being called “gay.” Incredibly sad and ironic that he is called gay even after death. And if you haven’t noticed, it is still being used as a negative slur.

Homophobia in the Black Community

Terrance blogs about homophobia and the Black community in his blog The Republic of T.:

He’s right in terms of black homophobia having its roots in the homophobia of the dominant society, just as Horace Griffin traces it back to the “queering” (as I imagine Dyson might put it) of black sexuality going all the way back to slavery and the inculcation of black slaves into a conservative, biblically literalistic Christianity during a sexually repressed Victorian era.

However, I think that only means that there’s even more of a need to focus on homophobia in black communities. There’s even more of a need to point out that black churches are in many ways aligning themselves with the same political forces that used religion against black people, as a means of justifying slavery and segregation, because the leaders of those movements know that religiously-based homophobia is one area of common ground they have with religious blacks. And those same political leaders employ religion to justify economic policies (among others) that negatively impact many African Americans.

300

AradhanaD writes a movie review on 300 on her blog Leftist Looney Lunchbox:

The movie doesn’t even pretend to be anything but white supremacist, misogynist, islamophobic, ableist, or homophobic, in fact it prides itself on all these accounts. If we missed the homophobia at the beginning of the movie when King Leonidas briefly refers to Athenians as “Boy-loving philosophers”, we get it again ten-fold repeatedly throughout the movie.