Saturday, May 31, 2008

Bigotry and Contempt at Taxpayer Expense

Once upon a time, feminism stood for fairness, equality, and possibility. But feminism traces its roots back to Karl Marx, George Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. That fact alone should make us think twice before acquiescing to the insistent demands of the women's libbers. Rep. Howard Berman, California Democrat, recently introduced the International Violence Against Women Act (H.R. 5927). Known to its supporters as I-VAWA, the bill is based on the Violence Against Women Act, first signed into law in 1994 at the behest of First Lady Hillary Clinton.

The crusade to stop intimate partner violence began in 1972 when activist Erin Pizzey established the first woman's abuse shelter in London. Pizzey quickly discovered that many of the women in her shelter were just as violent as their partners. That led her to conclude that partner abuse is a human, not gender-specific problem. That revelation didn't sit well with the rad-fems, who were determined to usurp the domestic violence issue to leap-frog their own political agenda. So they stormed the meetings and Pizzey was soon voted out. These experiences compelled Pizzey to pen an expose called "How the Women's Movement Taught Women to Hate Men." Her essay highlights spiteful women like the zealot who openly declared, "We don't like men .If there is ever to be any equality, marriage and the family must be abolished." Thanks to the domestic violence movement, the contempt of men began to spread across the globe.

In Canada, abuse shelters became known as "one-stop divorce shops" that forbade women to reconcile with their partners. It got so bad that former shelter resident Nezha Saad revealed to a local judge, "I was put under tremendous pressure.to say even more negative things about my husband to get him in more trouble with the law."

Disdain for men permeates the domestic violence industry in the United States, as well. Three years ago conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly excoriated the Violence Against Women Act as the "hate-men law." That damning appraisal is confirmed by numerous industry insiders. (Caution: vulgar language ahead!) In Minnesota a shelter director left her job in disgust because the residents were subjected to a constant barrage of lesbian propaganda that said in so many words, "All men are sh*ts, all men are abusers."

Joy Taylor, who had volunteered at her local shelter, was shocked by the staff's militant feminist ideology. "Men were always presented at potential abusers; any goodness one might see in them was only temporary," she revealed.

In Washington state, the head of one shelter admitted, "Whenever I speak of male abuse, I am met with disbelief and, even worse, laughter." Many of these shelters not only turn away male victims of violence, they even refuse to accept adolescent males who are children of female abuse victims.

One Seattle-area judge wrote, "I am a member of the advisory committee for the local shelter. I was shocked at the anti-male bias of the ladies who ran the center. My committee expressed concern about the underlying anti-male bias which even showed up in the name of the shelter."

The Violence Against Women Act also bankrolls educational programs for law enforcement personnel. In California, retired police officer George Sperry described domestic violence training classes as "so dripping with male hatred that everyone in the class felt uncomfortable, male and female officers alike." In 2006 the presenter at a West Virginia seminar openly referred to a man accused of domestic violence as a "scum bag," at the same time making light of a Florida incident where a young man was sexually assaulted by his female teacher.

So it's probably no surprise that the International Violence Against Women Act is filled with numerous one-sided and alarmist claims that amount to a spiteful indictment of the male species. The bill is filled with neo-Marxist cant about "power inequities." But no where does the bill mention the recent 32-nation survey that found women were more likely to strike the first blow. And of course the proposed law never mentions that men are twice as likely as women to die of violence-related causes.

The domestic violence industry needs a top-to-bottom house-cleaning. Scratch below the veneer of self-serving clich,s like "helping battered women escape the cycle of abuse," and you'll find a self-perpetuating industry that cares only about breaking up families and vilifying men. All this thanks to the largesse of the U.S. taxpayer, to the tune of $1 billion a year. And this is what Rep. Berman wants to export to the rest of the world.

Source



Now it's reformed homosexuals getting pummeled

Verbal to violent, attacks rise against former homosexuals

Homosexual activist groups long have denied that ex-"gays" exist and have charged those ministries that work with the needs of those desiring to leave the lifestyle are fraudulent. One such activist even recently attributed the crime of rape to the "sickness" of the ex-"gay" movement.

But some attacks on those who have left the lifestyle, or are trying to, go far beyond verbal denigration, according to those who have experienced it, including Joe and Marion Allen. Their son Bart was in the process of leaving the homosexual lifestyle in 2001 when the "gay" with whom he'd shared an apartment strangled and killed him. The Allens now run a ministry called Hope for the Broken Heart and they have spoken at conferences for the ex-"gay" ministry Exodus International simply because they cannot be silent about the tragedy in their family, and they want to help others avoid a similar result.

"He [Bart] was in the process of trying to come away from this, and was just involved with a sick, sick man," Mrs. Allen told WND. "He was wanting help. He did not understand his feelings and we certainly did not understand his feelings. "Thank goodness our child was a believer. He did love the Lord and he was miserable. He knew what the Scriptures said about it," she said. The family looked for help from a counselor but found, instead, despair. "When Bart came out of her office, he looked like he had been given a death sentence. I know this lady did not realize what she was doing . but she had told him he was born gay," she said.

"She told him we were doing him an injustice by telling him this was wrong and he needed to go on back [to the homosexual lifestyle]," she said. Her son did go back, but still couldn't accept his own lifestyle choices any longer, and asked the other man to leave the apartment. "He was trying to make a break and he wanted help. He [Bart] called him from our house, and told him [to move out]," she said. Her son asked the apartment building managers to change his locks, but they declined, assuring him the keys could not be duplicated. "We don't know [what happened]. The police told us Bart was asleep. He [the attacker] got in and strangled him to death with his hands and a dog leash," Mrs. Allen said.

While violence rising to the level of homicide is not reported a great deal, the lower levels of harassment and badgering are growing, according those who have experienced or witnessed it. Among recent situations that have developed in the ongoing argument over the 'innateness" on homosexuality:

* Officials at a New England organization have reported that members of a transgender lobby have promised to shadow grandmothers and others who will be collecting petition signatures on a traditional marriage amendment plan this summer.

* Actions by members of the homosexual community recently prompted the American Psychiatric Association to cancel what was to be a discussion of the lifestyle.

* And prominent leaders of the homosexual community have stated that only they benefit from hate crimes laws, those laws that enhance a penalty for crimes already covered by other statutes based on the thoughts that accompany the criminal act.

The Allens connected with the Exodus International Ministry and have been working through that, and their own project, to offer help to those who want guidance by sharing their own experiences. "I guess you never get over things, of course, but it has been almost seven years. We still cry," she said.

Regina Griggs, the executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, said her organization and staff members repeatedly have been attacked simply because of their message: that there are such individuals as former homosexuals.

Some attacks have been physical, such as the 2007 incident at the Arlington County Fair. There, police told WND, there was a confrontation between an individual who got upset over the PFOX message about leaving homosexuality and a volunteer at the fair booth. "One officer told me today he was on patrol at the fair when a woman approached him and told him a man had knocked over pamphlets at the PFOX booth and assaulted another man there. The officer then spoke to the alleged victim. He did not want to press charges and therefore no written report was filed," said a statement issued by John Lisle, media relations officer for the Arlington County police department.

"Based on the description the officer was given, he located the suspect at the fair. Another officer escorted that gentleman off the fair grounds," his statement continued. The result of the situation? Pro-homosexual activists vigorously condemned Griggs for "making up" the story when she alerted supporters about the situation. "Regina Griggs has lost all credibility and must resign in shame for her dishonest behavior," wrote Wayne Besen, executive director of the homosexual advocacy group Truth Wins Out. "What PFOX did was warped, twisted and an insult (sic) real hate crime victims."

Griggs said at the time, "The gays became infuriated when our ex-gay volunteers testified about leaving homosexuality. . One gay man went so far as to hit our ex-gay volunteer because he refused to recant his ex-gay testimony."

The fair was one of the events to which PFOX was admitted. Several other major influences in America today, including the National Education Association, and the Parent-Teachers Association, simply refuse to allow PFOX to appear at their events.

Griggs said her most recent application for an event was returned to her unopened. NEA and PTA officials refused to respond to WND requests for comment on their censorship policies.

Those who condemn homosexuality also face electronic badgering. When Sally Kern, an Oklahoma lawmaker, vocally rejected the homosexual lifestyle choice as a threat, she was inundated with tens of thousands of e-mails in a coordinated attack on her beliefs. Some of the e-mails threatened her.

In a PFOX commentary, the question was raised: "Why is it that the term 'ex-gay' so threatens the gay community?" That's because, "It implies that one remains homosexual by choice. That the gay person need not continue in the homosexual lifestyle is an unsettling message. It is far easier to believe that there is no way out than to contemplate the rigors of the change process. Let no one deceive themselves by thinking that leaving the homosexual lifestyle is an easy thing to do. It is extremely difficult. It is only when we totally give up and say, 'Lord, I can't do it on my own,' that we allow God the opportunity to come in and begin to remake our lives. The process is slow and the gay person encounters much in the way of spiritual warfare. The enemy does not allow anyone to easily slip out of his control. Indeed, the ex-gay person passes through the fire."

But the label itself is important, they say. "It is our witness to the life-changing power of Jesus Christ. It is the ray of hope that flickers within the gay community that homosexuality is not a terminal condition. In itself, it says, 'There IS a way out!'"

Griggs told WND the movement is becoming more aggressive in teaching that homosexuality is something people are born with, not something they choose for whatever reasons. "We have a school board teaching homosexuality is innate. We have judges ruling schools are not required to teach fact-based [sex education] information," she said. "Basically they are silencing anyone who holds a different opinion. Their sole concern is about advancing that homosexuality is normal, natural and healthy and should have all the equal benefits of marriage.

"If you come at it from a Christian perspective, that makes you a homophobe," she said, citing the case of a University of Toledo administrator who was fired for expressing her personal Christian testimony regarding homosexuality. "They're not seeking equality; they're seeking total control," she said.

National statistics on crimes victimizing those who are leaving the homosexual lifestyle are virtually untracked, but a federal study does reveal that there is a level of violence involving same-sex partners. The 2000 study that cites those statistics, however, notes that most intimate partner victimizations are not reported to police. The federal study did reveal that violence between "partners" is more common among male same-sex duos than among female same-sex duos, women living with women reported less "intimate partner violence" than women living with men but men living in homosexual situations reported a higher rate of assault than men living with women.

At The State of America, an author raised the issue of the springtime event, the Day of Silence, which promotes homosexuality in public schools under the guise of highlighting "discrimination" against "gays." "The Day of Truth is simply a day of counter-cultural political activism. A day of silence would almost be okay if it was about all bullying, all intolerance, and all discrimination, but it is not. What about the harassment of the goofy looking guy with glasses, or the person with a big wart on her neck, or the one with too many ugly pimples, or wimps, or nerds, or those who wear black cloaks and look like gangsters, or all the others who are often harassed because of appearance or speech problem or whatever? Gays are certainly not the only one silenced, harassed, bullied, alienated, or isolated. A lot of kids have been murdered by others kids because of being harassed before and since the Columbine massacre. Why is their not a national day of protest for them? Because gays are the only group with a corporate funded political agenda."

"Each year thousands of men and women with same-sex attractions make the personal decision to leave homosexuality by means of reparative therapy, ex-gay ministry or group counseling. Their choice is one only they can make. However, there are others who refuse to respect that choice, and endeavor to attack the ex-gay community. Consequently, ex-gays are subject to an increasingly hostile environment where they are reviled or attacked as perpetrators of hate and discrimination simply because they dare to exist," Griggs said.

Researcher Georges Rekers, of the University of South Carolina, in a review of studies, confirms the results indicate homosexuality can be changed "significantly." "[The research] demonstrates with convincing scientific evidence that the Christian ministry interventions of Exodus International produce strong and clinically meaningful changes in homosexual orientation in a large percentage of individuals. Furthermore this . research . yielded no evidence to support the common assumption that attempts to change sexual orientation cause harm or psychological distress," he said in a report on the website for The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.

Exodus officials had protested when Congress recently considered the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, H.R 1592, which was to protect those with "sexual orientation" issues. According to a Baptist Press report, a spokesman said the legislation was discriminatory. "What we're saying is this legislation is unfair, because it means that I was more valuable as a homosexual than I am today as a former homosexual," the spokesman said.

Source



The ‘Blind Dogmatists’ of the Condom Scam

Elites, pundits and celebrities frequently cite the Catholic Church as responsible for the spread of AIDS in Africa by her refusal to support condom use as a solution

Among my rather eclectic circle of friends are a handful of street preachers who are regularly abused, ridiculed and threatened by those they try to reach. The preachers lament that people just don't seem to respect the Christian faith any more. I tell them “It might not make you feel any better, but they don't respect pure science either.”

Nowhere is this blindness more apparent than in the frenetic efforts to slow or halt the African AIDS epidemic with condoms. When the Catholic Church attempts to teach and preach about the only realistic solution to this crisis—abstinence and faithfulness—it is mocked and attacked as “blind” and “dogmatic” by the very people who are making a lot of money from distributing billions of condoms.

For example, Peter Piot, head of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said that, “When priests preach against using contraception, they are committing a serious mistake which is costing human lives.” The Guardian's Polly Toynbee backed him up, claiming that, “In countries where 50% are infected, millions of very young AIDS orphans are today's immediate victims of the curia.”

AIDS really began to take hold in the Sub-Sahara in the early 1990s. In response, a vast legion of international population control groups, led by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Bank, and International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) began to distribute literally tons of condoms in the region. Although pro-lifers vociferously disagreed with their methods and their morality, we at least conceded that their motives were good. But now we have ample reason to question their motivations as well.

Anyone who has traveled in Africa over the past decade has seen the ubiquitous condom billboards leering at them from every direction. Stone walls near sports fields, schools and anywhere else people congregate are plastered with pro-condom messages. The population controllers even sport condom advertisements painted on their vehicles or on their wheel covers. In the larger cities, public condom demonstrations and giveaways are everywhere. All of these advertisements and activities have one thing in common. They all claim that using condoms will make you “safe,” and none of them mention that condoms fail very often indeed.

The “family planner's bible,” Contraceptive Technology, (CT) provides the most critical piece of information that shows how condoms actually promote the spread of AIDS. According to a summary of fifteen studies using more than 25,000 condoms, CT found that they broke 4.63 percent of the time and slipped off 3.40 percent of the time, for a total of 8.03 percent.

This means that, if a person uses a condom only ten times, he has a 57 percent chance of having at least one failure. After fifty uses, he has a 99 percent chance of having at least one failure and a 39% chance of having at least five failures. If he uses 100 condoms, a typical amount in one year, he will have at least one failure and has a 91 percent chance of having at least five failures.

The distribution of Catholics and Muslims in Africa provides further proof of the condom's inability to stop AIDS. In African countries with a high percentage of Catholics and Muslims, who generally do not use condoms, the adult HIV infection rate is very low. In nations with low percentages of Catholics and Muslims, the adult HIV infection rates are high. In the five African countries with the most Catholics and Muslims (averaging 99% of the populations), the average current adult HIV infection rate is only 0.09 percent, or about one in 1,100 adults.

In the five African countries with the least Catholics and Muslims (averaging only 10% of the populations), the average current adult HIV infection rate is a staggering 16.20 percent, or one in six, a rate 180 times higher.

The Ugandan example has proven that the key to stopping AIDS is not a failure-prone, less-than-paper thin layer of latex, but modifying human sexual behavior. Uganda's emphasis on abstinence and faithfulness has led to its adult HIV infection rate plunging from nearly one in four in the early 1990s to about six percent now, with countries pushing condoms continuing to see a rise in infection rates.

Yet, despite the clear evidence, the population controllers are still doing everything they can do defund abstinence programs and ramp up condom distribution. Who are the true “blind dogmatists” here?

Source



Boozy Britain

What we surely need to address is why vast swathes of young people - and their parents and grandparents, too, I expect - find being so intoxicated that you can't stand up the very acme of fun. We've all done it: I had my stomach pumped once when I was a student (I know - classy), but most of us aren't madly keen to keep on doing it.

I fully understand the joys of the three-hour lunch: I love sitting in the sunshine with a chilled bottle of white wine; I have no reformed drinker-style notions about the evils of booze. Drinking until you're giggly and feel like singing is very nice. Drinking until the room starts spinning and you want to throw up isn't. What I can't get my head around is why such vast numbers of people believe it is and that it is what you must do to have a laugh.

I was walking back from St Leonards in East Sussex to Hastings a few months ago, at about three in the morning, after a party. We detoured via a chip shop near the sea front because we were starving.

Here is what we saw at the chip shop: 1) a young man, who had been glassed in the face, trying to buy a kebab; 2) two extremely drunk young men standing outside (near some sick) trying to start a fight with, as far as I could tell, any random person; 3) two girls aged about 15, completely inappropriately dressed (because, sorry, and do exercise your female rights to cram your pallid flesh into whatever porno costume you like, but if you're going to stagger about pissed at three in the morning, take a coat and wear it) clutching each other and barely able to stand up; and 4) another young girl, outside the chip shop this time, being felt up by some bloke as she was vomiting.

The thing is, having been at a party until 3am, my companions and I were also drunk. But, Jesus, not that drunk. Why would you do that to yourself? In what way is it fun to be glassed, semi-raped or puke down your dress? Does anyone seriously wake up in the morning and think: "Top night"? Statistics tell us they must, in vast and increasing numbers.

I happened to be in Hastings, but I expect a version of the hideous scenario above plays itself out everywhere. I know young people in the countryside are so bored there's nothing for it but to drink, have sex (but apparently not understand how contraception works. Why not? - it's not exactly challenging) and take drugs, and I suspect that the more remote the community, the more intense the boredom and the more extreme the partaking: there is actually something intensely provincial about drinking to excess.

It has nevertheless become shorthand for being "one of us", recognisably a member of the great tribe of pissheads, up for a laugh. The liberal elite, in their usual moronic, tragically out of touch way, thought that endlessly printing photographs of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford in full Bullingdon rig and banging on about toffs would freak out voters and send them scurrying gratefully into the arms of the Socialist Workers party. As we know from the past few weeks - this one included - it didn't quite work that way. Well, d'oh. Okay, so they're wearing funny clothes - but they're also doing what the nation likes doing best: getting bladdered. The whole raison d'etre of clubs such as the Bullingdon is drinking to the point of oblivion. It is also the whole raison d'etre of vast swathes of the country.

It has become as outre in some circles to use the word "underclass" as it would be to call homosexuals "arse bandits" or black people "nig-nogs". We keep telling ourselves that the lovely, admirable, hard-working, morally upright (there was a time when it was the nation's conscience as well as its backbone) working class still exists and a few horrid bad apples are spoiling the barrel. This is simply not true. The old working class exists, but it is on its last legs, and the underclass that has replaced it is on the rise - angry, desperate, broke and broken, culturally and morally barren, passing on their poor, empty lives to their children and grandchildren. No wonder they drink to oblivion - wouldn't you?

The fact of the matter is that the binge-drinking problem is largely an underclass problem. Teen pregnancies are largely an underclass problem. Teenage crime is largely an underclass problem. Child neglect - we live in a country where a little girl allegedly starved to death in her own home last week - is largely an underclass problem. Our collective problems are largely underclass problems.

Could somebody not just come out and say it, before another generation floats away to its doom on a sea of alcopops? The underclass was made, not born. Nobody asks to live in poverty, with no hope, no ambitions, no possibility of betterment, and the belief that the most fun you can have is to drink yourself into early cirrhosis. I know they're hard to love, but really - do we owe these people no responsibility whatsoever? Don't cut the price of their dreadful gut-rot: help them.

More here

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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