Tag Archives: Civil rights

A good example of false equivalency

Posted on August 20, 2013 at 6:57 am by Epluribusunum |

I misunderstood a comment by the author of the letter to which I respond below. His letter was originally published almost exactly one year ago (publication dates don’t include the year), which means that it was the author’s reposting of the year-old link that was actually inspired by our online conversation. I think it’s fair to say that my reading of it as pre-meditated exploitation of a conversation that he initiated, and in which I was participating in good faith, led me to respond more harshly than I otherwise would have. For that I apologize to Mr. Dickinson. He obviously did not, as I suggested in my response, write this to deflect negative attention generated by the Grand Jury report, or the censure, or any other Delgaudio-related drama of the past year.

On the other hand, his point in posting the link to that thread was to say that he more strongly than ever endorses the idea that the reporting of hate group activity is the moral equivalent of the very hate group activity being reported, even openly warning that I, personally, could be responsible for “fomenting a hate attack” because I discuss the hate group activities of the Sterling supervisor. The veiled suggestion that I had best not continue reporting on his active campaign to incite fear and hatred of people like me is offensive.

Continue reading →

Other crimes against humanity we shouldn’t be talking about

Posted on August 18, 2013 at 9:13 pm by Epluribusunum |

As noted in the first comment on the Uganda post below, we were admonished by a frequently irritated visitor to this blog for talking about the crimes against humanity unfolding in Uganda. Apparently – and I don’t know how else to interpret these words – because we are “highly educated” and fortunate to live in the rural end of the most affluent county in “the most free country in the world,” our concern about what’s going on in Uganda at the alleged direction of a US-based hate group leader is “over the top.”

I take the position that if you’re a human rights advocate, you should be concerned about crimes against humanity anywhere, not just where you live. And you should be especially concerned when the crimes are the outcome of collusion with a U.S. hate group leader, who is running the operation from within your own country precisely because it is free.

The situation in Uganda began with propaganda that defamed and dehumanized LGBTI people with claims that we sexually assault children. All human rights catastrophes started somewhere, and studying them is how we learn to do better. Do I think that what’s happening in Uganda could happen here, just because Scott Lively is the leader of a hate group, and Eugene Delgaudio is also the leader of a hate group? No – but pretending so is a lazy, simpleminded way to attack Eugene’s critics, isn’t it?

Anti-gay hate groups don’t have much of a future here. It’s more likely that when Nervous Eugene‘s cash cow runs its course in the U.S. he’ll move on to something or somewhere else. And if that new enterprise involves human rights abuses of LGBTI people in some other country we’ll have a responsibility to help them, too.

So this happened in 1935, as human rights advocates were warning of the deteriorating climate for certain disfavored groups in Germany: Continue reading →

This is why they’re called “hate groups”

Posted on August 16, 2013 at 8:10 pm by Epluribusunum |

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

[The lawsuit] boils down to nothing more than an attempt to define my Biblical views against homosexuality as a crime..

..Clearly, this lawsuit is intended not only to silence me as an effective voice of opposition to the ‘gay’ agenda, it is also to intimidate everyone else who would dare to follow my example.

Now, who does that sound like? A certain disgraced and censured Sterling supervisor who fills his bank account by running a hate group at Loudoun taxpayers’ expense? And some of his shameless apologists?

Yes, but it’s actually another hate group director, Scott Lively. Mr. Lively is currently facing a federal lawsuit for his role in creating a deadly climate for the LGBTI community in Uganda. Readers may remember him also as the man who hired a known child rapist to run his fake “ministry” out of a coffeehouse designed to attract teenagers. But that was okay, because the predator had “accepted the salvation of Christ” (and of course, the children he preferred were female).

Mr. Lively has tried to have the lawsuit against him dismissed on First Amendment grounds. But it turns out that there are limits even to free expression when that expression is an integral part of criminal activity, and the criminal activity of which Mr. Lively is accused is aiding and abetting in the commission of a crime against humanity.

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A sci-fi version of “tolerance”

Posted on July 9, 2013 at 2:09 pm by Epluribusunum |

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.

With the recent Supreme Court ruling, the gay marriage issue becomes moot. The Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution will, sooner or later, give legal force in every state to any marriage contract recognized by any other state.

Now it will be interesting to see whether the victorious proponents of gay marriage will show tolerance toward those who disagreed with them when the issue was still in dispute.

The above is science fiction writer and anti-gay fanatic Orson Scott Card (humorously, he once referred to marriage between two people of the same gender as itself “an act of intolerance,” openly advocated the criminalization of “homosexual behavior,” and more recently threatened to “act to destroy [the] government and bring it down” if marriage equality became a reality). Card is upset because some people who might otherwise be his fans have publicized his long history of inflammatory statements targeting LGBT people, and suggested that our money could be better be spent elsewhere. Among normal people, making such informed choices is known as “the free market.” For Card, though, “tolerance” demands our silence regarding his behavior.

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Breaking and Entering

Posted on June 14, 2013 at 7:23 am by John Flannery |

We Dems expected President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to offend our civil liberties.

We didn’t expect President Barack Obama, the constitutional law professor, to go back on his campaign promise to make a course correction to cure the over-reaching of the Bush Administration.

We were foolish to expect better.

Without regard to partisan coloration, our public officials and our government just can’t stop poking their noses into our private papers and communications.

The Fourth Amendment, by which we are purportedly protected, guaranteed we’d be secure” in our “persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

This guarantee has been rendered almost meaningless by the actions of our government from the federal to the county level. Applications to search and seize are routinely approved by magistrates and judges. The basis for the government’s searches are often kept secret. Continue reading →

White Wash

Posted on May 22, 2013 at 10:36 pm by John Flannery |

Samuel C. Means, a Waterford Mill Owner, leader of the Loudoun Rangers

In the past week, I urged that we remove the Confederate Soldier Statue, bearing a rifle in the direction of approaching visitors to the court in Leesburg, because it is an offending symbol of disunion, lawlessness and slavery.

In 2009, a Deputy Clerk at the Court, Jennifer Grant, reportedly told the Post that she “didn’t like [the statue],” but “there were certain things people didn’t talk about.”

Johnny Chambers, on his way to Court this past Tuesday, told WUSA*9 that, “It’s hard to get justice when you got people that live in this area, that run this country, that believe in this system,” pointing at the Confederate Soldier statue.

Leesburg court personnel told me, “We all read what you wrote. We here talk among ourselves and some of us have resented that statue. … You should know you have support in this building.”

The most virulent opposition to removing the statue claims that the statue’s not about slavery, it’s just history.

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Virginia GOP doubles down on detachment from reality

Posted on May 20, 2013 at 11:15 am by Epluribusunum |

E. W. Jackson

In his television ad, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli attempts to reinvent himself as a progressive (i.e., he wants viewers to see him as someone who “stands up for the vulnerable,” who prioritizes the prevention of sexual assault, who volunteers at homeless shelters, etc.). This ad is clearly targeting the low-information voter (the very best kind for what the GOP has allowed itself to become), because everyone who knows what Mr. Cuccinelli has actually been up to in his time in public office finds it a hilarious farce.

But Virginia Republicans have just hung a millstone around his neck by nominating the florid lunatic E.W. Jackson for Lt. Governor.

Among the many gems surfacing about this guy is evidence that he is one of those deep thinkers who can’t quite grasp the concept of civil rights as it applies to people universally – you know, the rights guaranteed to every American under the 14th Amendment regardless of personal characteristics such as their race, religious affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Continue reading →

Take That Statue Down!

Posted on May 14, 2013 at 5:37 am by John Flannery |

Confederate soldier statue in front of the historic Leesburg Court House

Take that confederate soldier statue down that stands in front of the historic Leesburg Court House!

It’s a symbol of disunion and slavery. If it’s to stand anywhere, let it be in a museum but not at the front of a court of law on public grounds.

Our forebears could have placed a less offensive symbol in front of the court house in 1908. But they didn’t. They intended to make a statement – an unacceptable statement – and it’s high time we rejected that offensive statement.

Years ago, in the 1980s, there were stocks and whipping posts in front of this same court house.

I made reference at a sentencing in the court house once, how it was “unfortunate” that such dehumanizing and tortuous methods of punishment stood directly in front of a court house when we were considering punishment in a criminal case. Continue reading →

Gay Men’s Chorus Benefit Concert at UUCS May 10

Posted on April 26, 2013 at 3:11 pm by Epluribusunum |

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Sterling has always been a great friend to Equality Loudoun and the LGBT community. We are pleased be co-sponsoring this event with them, along with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Loudoun, St. James United Church of Christ, and Loudoun Out Loud.

The concert will benefit the outreach work of People of Faith for Equality in Northern Virginia, a subset of the People of Faith for Equality in Virginia (POFEV). POFEV is an interfaith collaboration that seeks equal rights for all citizens through prayer, education, organization, and advocacy while challenging those who equate religious faith and intolerance.

It’s unfortunate that there are people who do equate those things (!), but it’s clear to most that it’s all over but the shouting. So let the bitter folk shout and whine while the rest of us sing. Hope to see you there!