What is that phrase? “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” you can swap “the lady” with “the man” and have the perfect scenerio when it comes to the right and some of their most outrageous outspoken cage rattlers. Pretty soon we’re going to hear that Pat Robertson has come out of the closet(Shudder!)

Family Research Council co-founder George Rekers went on a trip to Europe and took a lovely rentboy with him. He’s claiming he didn’t know until the middle of the trip – but when you get an escort from RentBoy.com what exactly do you expect you’re going to get?

From the Miami Herald:

On April 13, the “rent boy” (whom we’ll call Lucien) arrived at Miami International Airport on Iberian Airlines Flight 6123, after a ten-day, fully subsidized trip to Europe. He was soon followed out of customs by an old man with an atavistic mustache and a desperate blond comb-over, pushing an overburdened baggage cart. That man was George Alan Rekers, of North Miami — the callboy’s client and, as it happens, one of America’s most prominent anti-gay activists. Rekers, a Baptist minister who is a leading scholar for the Christian right, left the terminal with his gay escort, looking a bit discomfited when a picture of the two was snapped with a hot-pink digital camera. Reached by New Times before a trip to Bermuda, Rekers said he learned Lucien was a prostitute only midway through their vacation. “I had surgery,” Rekers said, “and I can’t lift luggage. That’s why I hired him.” (Though medical problems didn’t stop him from pushing the tottering baggage cart through MIA.) Yet Rekers wouldn’t deny he met his slender, blond escort at Rentboy.com — which features homepage images of men in bondage and grainy videos of crotch-rubbing twinks — and Lucien confirmed it.

Rekers has done a lot of damage to children and families with his group National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), an organization that systematically attempts to turn gay people straight. He authored several books, including “Shaping Your Child’s Sexual Identity” and “Growing Up Straight: What Every Family Should Know About Homosexuality,” both aimed to prevent kids from becoming gay.

Rekers was used as an expert witness in Arkansas and Florida in favor of banning gay adoption. His associates in NARTH have been found to be less than righteous Bible thumpers. According to TruthWinsOut.org:

On February 15, 2010, a Truth Wins Out (TWO) and South Florida Gay News (SFGN) investigation revealed that Arthur Abba Goldberg (on the board of directors of NARTH) was a Wall Street criminal mastermind who was convicted in 1987 of “fraud of spectacular scope”.

Read more about the 13 Key Facts You Should Know About NARTH… Photo from Joe. My. God.

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The ladies on The View just got into a heated debate over the proposed Oklahoma law that would force women who are to have an abortion to have an ultrasound and listen to descriptions of what the images reveal.

Heated because, while Elisabeth Hasselbeck was going on equating an abortion to deleting an e-mail and getting a warning message before you can delete the e-mail, Whoopie got all fired up. As Whoppie said, and we agree, a woman does not go into an abortion half-hazardly without feeling any guilt or remorse for what they are about to do. She rightfully implied that if you force people to have their babies, they in-turn can treat their child with resentment and abuse.

Which, to us, raises a good question: If Republicans and the Right want to dictate what a woman can and can’t do with their bodies, to counter-balance that, they would be in favor of population control, right? It’s a subject that no one talks about, but it certainly is an issue that needs to be discussed. The positive effects of environmental eco-measures we are taking with recycling and the like, are being compounded and made mute by the approximately 11,000 babies being born in the U.S. every day.

The Oregonian’s former managing editor Jack Hart had this to say in 2008:

“A strange taboo keeps us from talking about the actual cause of global warming and a deadly smorgasbord of other environmental problems. In this supposedly plain-talking era, a former presidential candidate will tell us how Viagra cured his ED, but hardly anybody will talk about what’s trashing the Earth. Erectile dysfunction’s a bummer. But the fate of our planet is a little more worrisome.

The taboo afflicts most media, including this newspaper. The Oregonian’s Earth Day editorial urged support for politicians who back energy-efficient buildings, wind power, public transportation and so on. Everything but population stabilization!”

What are your thoughts?

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The Huffington Post has reported that Glenn Beck may not get his ideal candidate (to use against the Dems,) as he called this ficticious person a “gay-handicapped-black woman who’s an immigrant.” Instead, it looks like the front runner is more conservitive than Chief Associate Justice John Paul Stevens; Elena Kagan, President Obama’s solicitor general.

Republicans would be wise to support Kagan, but we can already see from the past couple of months, they’ll do all they can to oppose her…just out of spite and sticking to their, “Oppose Everything!” rule they now live by.

Among Obama’s short list include the same list he had the last time he appointed a high court nominee: former Georgia Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, federal appeals court judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. An addition to the list is federal appeals court Judge Sidney Thomas of Montana.

Hillary Clinton‘s name had been rumored to be a part of the short list, but Obama’s White House Press Secretary said Obama is “going to keep her as his Secretary of State.”

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Unfortunately the battle over Maine Gay Marriage is still in play. The gay marriage opponents have gathered enough signatures to get it on the ballot this November to repeal the law, which is being held back, rather than go into effect September 12th. See the video below.

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Our own Senator Jeff Merkely, who is the lead sponsor of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act told the Advocate Magazine that the bill could be attached to seperate legislation, as an amendment.

The Advocate continues

The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, for example, passed in the Senate this summer as an amendment to a Department of Defense bill.

The ENDA bill was introduced earlier today by Senator Merkley, along with Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Maine Republican senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. There are currently 34 additional cosponsors, according to a Merkley spokeswoman.

A House version of the legislation with similar language was introduced in June by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Both bills prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation as well as gender identity — removal of gender identity language from the House’s 2007 ENDA bill led to an uproar among many gay and transgender rights advocates. Though that bill passed the House, the Senate did not take up any companion legislation.

If passed, ENDA would prohibit employers from firing an employee or refusing to hire or promote a person based on sexual orientation or gender identity. President Obama has said he will sign the legislation, though the bill’s chances of passage are unclear, especially if it is attached as an amendment to another piece of legislation.

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As we all know by now, our equal rights struggle can be a bit frustrating. One step forward, two steps back. Two steps forward, three steps back. This pattern continues in Maine, where the same public relations firm that helped get Prop. 8 through, has now been hired by the opponents in Maine.

Maine’s “Freedom To Marry” group has in turn hired Jesse Connolly, the chief of staff for House Speaker Hannah Pingree. Conelly states, “This is going to be a campaign that a lot of folks are going to try to say has national implications.” Though they have no goal yet of fundraising that will be needed, Connolly and his political action committee are prepared for a high-profile and costly campaign.

Maine was the fifth state to legalize same-sex marriage, when the Governor Baldacci signed it into law on May 6th. The law itself goes into effect in September, unless the opponents collect 55,087 signatures from qualified registered voters.
Read the full story from 365gay.com here…

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