Take Three Minutes and Listen ... Memes Will Be Up Later

Tuesday Thought #3

Our Girl Is Missing

Not so much in the blogging mood today.

Our girl, Conseulo, is missing.

Somehow she got out of the house, and disappeared. I didn't think she could hop our fence but maybe she found a way under ...

We've searched the yard; we set out food and her blanker and a little box and some clothes so maybe she'll catch a scent a come back.

We walked the neighborhood and spoke with neighbors and gave them flyers.

We posted the flyers on Facebook, on Missing Pets pages and local town pages;friends have taken the poster and done the same.

We're calling vets and shelters this morning to see if anyone has brought her to them.

I really need that Little Bitch to come home.

So,again,I am not much in the blogging mood today.

It's Sad ....

... when no one wants to sit beside the racist at the meeting.

... when the kid no one likes eats alone.

... when a pasty faced clown, a sexual predator and a man who gleefully takes away children's heathcare sit together.

... when even Paul Ryan and Mitch McTurtle don't want to sit next to you.

Your turn ... caption this photo.

After Their Son's Death, Rob and Linda Robertson Hope To Change Church Views On Homosexuality

Rob and Linda Robertson thought of themselves as Good Christians, and found themselves tested when, at age 12, their son Ryan told them he was gay. Oh, they told him they loved him, but they also told him that he had to change, and entered him into reparative therapy, made him meet regularly with their pastor, put him in Bible study and church youth groups because they believed, as they’d been taught through their church, that homosexuality is a sin and that its wrong.

But nothing changed; six years and nothing changed. Except that Ryan, at age eighteen was still gay, and more miserable than ever. He cut off from his parents and his faith, and started taking drugs, and in 2009, he died of an overdose.

Now, too late for their own child, Rob and Linda Robertson have come to the conclusions that they were “wrongly taught.” Rob Robertson says the church, through its programs of reparative therapies, and its emphasis on homosexuality being wrong and curable, have made a “horrible, horrible mistake.”

But they chose to stay with their faith, though they switched to a non-denominational church, and began working to inspire other Christians with gay children to do the same. The Robertson’s no longer want the church to try and change gay children, they want the churches to change and become more understanding, more tolerant, and more, for lack of a better word, Christ-like.

“Parents don’t have anyone on their journey to reconcile their faith and their love for their child. They either reject their child and hold onto their faith, or they reject their faith and hold onto their child. Rob and I think you can do both: be fully affirming of your faith and fully hold onto your child.” — Linda Robertson

And they know they have a tough road ahead of them; Evangelicals tend to dismiss fellow believers who accept same-sex relationships as no longer being “real” Christians, but the Robertson’s, and other parents of gay children, have begun seeking one another out online and through faith-oriented organizations for the LGBT community, like the Gay Christian Network, The Reformation Project and The Marin Foundation.

Linda Robertson, who blogs about Ryan at JustBecauseHeBreathes, also created a private Facebook page she started for evangelical mothers of gays that has more than 300 members. And others are also following …

• James Brownson — whose own son came out as gay — is a New Testament scholar at Western Theological Seminary and recently published the book “Bible, Gender, Sexuality,” advocating a re-examination of what Scripture says about same-sex relationships.
• Chester Wenger, a retired Mennonite pastor, lost his clergy credentials after officiating at his son’s marriage to another man. Wenger, in a statement urging the church to accept gays and lesbians, told of the pain his family experienced when a church leader excommunicated his son three decades ago without any discussion with Wenger and his wife.
• The Reverend Danny Cortez, pastor of New Heart Community Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in California, was already moving toward recognizing same-sex relationships when his son came out.  And, when Cortez announced his changed outlook to his congregation, they voted to keep him; sadly the national denomination cut ties with the church.
• In the United Methodist Church, two ministers with gay sons drew national attention for separately presiding at their children’s same-sex weddings despite a church prohibition against doing so: the Reverend Thomas Ogletree was not disciplined by the church, but the Reverend Frank Schaefer went through several church court hearings, ultimately winning his case and keeping his clergy credentials.

The good news is that support for these so-called “reparative therapies” is falling; Alan Chambers, the leader of Exodus International, a ministry that tried to “help” Christians repress same-sex attraction, has apologized for the suffering the group caused and then shut the ministry down.

Sadly, though, while some strides have been made, Linda Robertson says some of the mothers who contact her through her Facebook page aren’t ready to completely accept their gay sons and daughters, and instead still believe that sexual orientation can be changed. Still others are moving away from the traditional evangelical view of how parents should respond when their children come out.

“I got a lot of emails from parents who said, ‘I don’t know one other parent of a gay child. I feel like in my community, I don’t have permission to love my child,’ They have a lot of questions. But then they’re going back to their churches and speaking to their pastors, speaking to their elders and speaking to their friends, saying, ‘We have a gay child. We love them and we don’t want to kick them out. How do we go forward?’” — Linda Robertson

I feel for parents like the Robertson’s, so coerced into believing their children are somehow wrong, or less than, or even deviant, by their faith. I feel for those parents who try and force their children to change their orientation, and do it so stridently, and so rabidly, that their children either completely cut them out of their lives, or take their own lives to end the suffering of thinking their parents don’t love them.

I am not a fan of organized religion, for those very reasons, but if there can be a rebirth of sorts, within the churches, and without the churches, by people of faith who choose to believe that God created us all in Hs … or Her … image, and that we are all worthy of loving who we love and being loved by our families, then this is a good thing.

Too bad Ryan had to die before his parents could see what harm religion can do, and before they realized that they, not their son, needed to change.

via LGBTQNation

Photo Credit: Elaine Thompson, AP

Random Musings

You know, last week when the Sixth Circuit Court ruled that discrimination against The Gays re: marriage was just fine, I loved the wingnuts coming out of the woodwork — the Bryan Browns, and the Brian Fishers and the Tony Perkins, and all those religiously-named Hate Groups — praising the judges on the bench for making the ‘right’ decision.

Funny, though, when the judges rule against them these asshats call them activists and unelected judges. Be careful boys, your hypocrisy is showing … again.

Speaking of rightwing loons, over there at Breitbart is a report that US Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch should face tough questioning before the Senate over her role in the 1992 Whitewater hearings:

“The prosecutor has a long career built of some high profile cases but there is one case Lynch was involved in that few are talking about. Lynch was a part of Bill Clinton's Whitewater probe defense team in 1992.”

One slight problem though. They’re talking about the wrong Loretta Lynch. The Lynch that was part of the Clinton defense team is on the right, and Obama’s nominee is on the left. 

It’s like they’re twins, right? So easy to get them confused.

Hottie of the Week: Raza Jaffrey. He played Dev on Smash before they tried to reinvent that show between seasons and now he’s Aasar Khan on Homeland. Is he a good guy or a bad guy? We don’t know; we just know he’s delicious.

Bob Geldof is putting the Band Aid back on.

It was announced this week that Geldof will re-record the iconic charity song "Do They Know It's Christmas" to raise funds to fight Ebola. And some new voices will join some of the old ones, like U2; Sam Smith, will be there; Cold-meh, er, Coldplay, too. One Direction, yawn, and the incomparable Adele.

I’d suggest letting Adele do it solo, but that’s just me.

UPDATE:  Last week I posted about several North Carolina magistrates who quit rather than perform same-sex marriages after not one, but two federal judges said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

And now, Judge John Smith, the chief administrator of North Carolina’s courts, has told Senate leader, Republican Phil Berger, that magistrates are duty-bound to perform same-sex marriages because it’s their job; and, he added, there is no federal law or rulings exempting the asshatted judges based on their personal religious leanings.

Of course, though, Berger and some two dozen other Senate Republicans have asked Smith to revise his directive, calling  it “at best incomplete and at worst misleading” by failing to take into account constitutional religious freedoms and federal civil rights laws for workers and government employees. But Smith countered with a 1991 Supreme Court decision that he says excluded state judicial employees from the definition of protected employees on the basis of religious beliefs because they are federal employees and cannot use their religion as a discriminatory weapon.

Then, as Republicans are apt to do, like rabid stupid dogs with a bone, Berger says he’ll introduce a bill next year protecting state officials who refuse to issue marriage licenses or perform weddings for same-sex couples.

Because discrimination is perfectly okay if you couch it in religion and use it against The Gays.

So, I’m sure you’ve all heard of the “Harlem Hate Pastor, James David Manning from ATLAH [All The Land Anointed Holy] Church. He’s the man of God who said The Gays should be stoned, er, put to death.

Now, though he’s gone even nuttier. Last week he claimed that Starbucks is “ground zero” for the Ebola outbreak because, ahem, "upscale sodomites" frequent the joint, and this week he upped the ante by claiming that Starbucks is using "sodomites' semen in lattes."

He says the reason that these “upscale sodomites” and "untoward types" hang out at Starbucks because the semen "flavors up" the coffee "and it makes you think that you're having a good time drinking that cup of latte with the semen in it."

Yes. He did. And he has a church. And he has a congregation. Seriously.

More stupid people? Okay ...

Megyn Kelly, one of Fox Now’s Talking Blonde Bimbos recently introduced Fox News’s Mike Huckabee as a guest on her “news” program The Kelly File with a casual mention to his show, only she called it, wait for it, it’s perfectly suited to a wingnut like Mike, she called it Fuckabee.

Oh, but she did.

More stupid people? Okay ....

Khloe Kardashian, whom I once thought of as the smart one — not saying much for that family, I know — has sparked a bit of outrage on Instagram after posting this meme on  featuring herself and her sisters Kim and Kourtney:

Khloe simply captioned the photo, “True.” While some fans found it funny, most found it racist and offensive and called her out on it; then after it received more than 400,000 ‘likes’ — from stupid racists, ALLEGEDLY — and 26,000 comments, Khloe deleted the picture from her page.

Like I said, I once thought she was the ‘smart’ one but she’s just as big a media-whore as the rest of that lot.

So, it looks like Joan Rivers should never have died.

A new Department of Heath report on her death confirms that, while undergoing an endoscopy at the Yorkville Endoscopy Clinic, there were multiple failures in protocol which occurred after her trachea closed up while she was underwent an unauthorized laryngoscopy by her personal physician:

Rivers never signed off on that procedure, which was performed by a doctor who was not authorized to operate at the endoscopy facility.

Rivers was possibly given too much anesthetic because she was not weighed before the procedure, which is standard practice.

The facility lacked the basic medication that could have been administered to open her trachea and quickly save her life.

As a result, Joan Rivers suffered irreversible brain damage.

In addition, there were stories about someone in the room while Rivers was under anesthesia taking selfies of him/herself with the comic; Yorkville Endoscopy states that the staffer taking the photos has been fired, as has the physician who performed Joan’s endoscopy.

While I am not a person who sues, if this was my mother, I’d sue the pants off the clinic and both doctors.

Joan Rivers was 81, but she showed no signs of stopping, or, hell, even slowing down before she went in for a routine endoscopy.

Sad. Sad.

As I've said, I wake up with a song in my head every day; something old, sometimes new, sometimes something I had no idea I even knew.

This week it's The Byrd's "My Back Pages."

My Heart Is Broken: Joe Bell Died Last Night

I first wrote about Jadin Bell back in January, 2013. He was 'Another One;' one of our LGBT youth that was bullied and terrorized so horribly that he took his own life rather than endure one more day of torture. See that post HERE.

In April 2013, I posted about Jadin's father, Joe Bell, who was undertaking a walk across America to both honor his son and to raise money for anti-bullying campaigns and awareness of the bullying epidemic in this country. See that post HERE. It was like a ray of light; maybe I wouldn't have to do 'Another One.'

Jadin Bell

In July 2013, I posted again [see that post HERE] about Joe Bell's walk, and the people he'd met and the stories he'd heard; and the struggles he was having on the walk due to having had two knee surgeries, and having two artificial knees. But he would walk in memory of Jadin.

Joe founded an organization, Faces For Change, for money and education and awareness. He was doing all he could to use his own tragedy for something good, to try and make sure no other parent had to hear the news that their child had committed suicide because of bullying.

And now ... this:

Joe Bell was killed last night along U.S. Highway 40 in Cheyenne County, Colorado, when a semi-truck driver reportedly fell asleep at the wheel and hit him. The driver, Kenneth Raven, who was not injured, was cited with careless driving resulting in death.

The walk is over. A post on the Faces For Change Facebook page announced Bell's death Thursday morning:

"Thank you so much for all of your continued support. He loved everyone he came into contact with, and was so appreciative of all your support. … He will continue his journey now with Jadin. Please keep his family in your prayers and thoughts." 

He's Another One, now.

My heart breaks for his family.

RIP Joe Bell, for you were an amazing father while you were with us.

via The Advocate

Before I Forget .... It's Original Recipe Lohan's™ 76th Birthday!

I'll give her this one.
Here she looks almost normal,
though she doesn't really look like Lindsay Lohan
with the new nose and lips.

Indeed.
The Old Girl turns....oh, this has to be a misprint....it says she's 26.
Is that in dog years? Twenty-six?
Road hard and put away wet, as we like to say down here in horse country.

On the other hand, this is 24-year-old Emma Stone:

Just two years younger than Lohan, and, I think, she kinda has the career Lohan should have, even could have, without the drink and drug and rehab and jail. And Lohan could have looked like Emma, instead of looking like Emma's crazy, drunk mom.
Just sayin'.