Meredith Baxter: Yes, I'm gay

Baxter has also come clean to her five kids, according to People. Her 25-year-old son Peter was all smiles. He told the magazine that he "just couldn't stop smiling, because she finally figured it out."

Study says lesbians make better parents
By 365gay Newswire
11.24.2009 8:51am EST

Lesbians make better parents than a man and a woman, according to Stephen Scott, Director of Research, at the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners.

In a meeting hosted by the think tank Demos, Scott said that the latest research showed that children of such couples did better in life, reported UK Daily Express.

Unsurprisingly, there has been a backlash from the conservative right, with critics saying that children need fathers and that children do best when raised by their married biological parents.

The Fathers4Justice campaign attacked the study for failing to promote the role of fathers. A spokeswoman told the Daily Express:

“This Government has introduced a new gender apartheid where fathers are marginalized and excluded from their children’s lives whereas other types of parent are celebrated and promoted. ‘Father’ has become the new ‘F’ word.”

The study, done by researchers at  Birkbeck College in London and Clark University in Massachusetts. says that children that are brought up by female couples are less likely to be confined by traditional gender roles and would even aspire to more male professions, said the Daily Mail

The Christian Institute noted that researchers claim that same-sex couples made good parents because they could never accidentally conceive, but instead they have to actively choose to adopt or find a sperm donor. This does not take into account the many gay and lesbian couples who have children while in straight marriages.

Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, is expecting her second child. The Times reported her optimism in a recent interview:

“Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is being raised in a stable, loving environment.”

>>I have known lesbians are better parents for years. I wrote a blog about it several years ago. Two mothers are better than one and men are neglectful parents. I mean all men, gay or straight. In fact I believe that young mothers should not leave their children alone with any man including their father until age 10. And as for Lesbians, they are much more efficient as parents because they are not straight womyn trying to raise both their children and their husband. The lesbian relationship is the most efficient in the human race. The most romantic also. virginia of VIRGINIAINC<<<

.. Rape In Afghanistan A Profound Problem, U.N. Says ..

.. ..

Black women and young women most affected by new breast cancer guidelines

"Three facts about breast cancer and Black women make the task force's recommendations inappropriate and potentially deadly. Black women: tend to be diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age; are more likely to be diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, a more virulent form; and are more likely to die of breast cancer than White women."

[H]istorically, researchers have not studied Black women. Black women have not been at the forefront of the breast cancer movement, and our unique health experiences and outcomes have not been factored into policy and advocacy decisions. These recommendations completely ignore the impact of well-known breast cancer disparities affecting us. ...

I strongly disagree with the notion that preventing the psychological harms and inconvenience caused by false-positive screening results, as implied in the recommendations, outweigh the importance of saving one woman's life. We should not be in the business of rationing care.

The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations. They do not set federal policy and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government. ...

There has been debate in this country for years about the age at which routine screening mammograms should begin, and how often they should be given. The Task Force has presented some new evidence for consideration but our policies remain unchanged. Indeed, I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action. ...

My message to women is simple. Mammograms have always been an important life-saving tool in the fight against breast cancer and they still are today. Keep doing what you have been doing for years -- talk to your doctor about your individual history, ask questions, and make the decision that is right for you.

Uganda’s Radical Anti-Gay Measure and the American Religious Right
By Michelle Goldberg
November 30, 2009

 

A proposed measure in Uganda would make repeated homosexual activity punishable by death. Anti-gay activists in the United States may think that it goes too far, but they laid the groundwork for it.


    [A]s a pastor, my goal is to, to encourage, to support. I never take sides.
    —Rick Warren on Meet the Press, Nov. 29, 2009

Uganda is currently contemplating anti-gay legislation so extreme that some of the most homophobic figures on the American religious right have criticized it. Homosexual activity is already illegal in Uganda, but under the new law “repeat offenders” and those having sex with HIV-positive individuals could be sentenced to death; citizens would be required to inform on those they suspect of homosexuality, or face imprisonment themselves.

“Christian ministries are speaking out against a Ugandan bill that would levy harsh penalties for homosexuals, saying it will make Christian ministry to homosexuals impossible,” began a recent article in the conservative evangelical World Magazine. Even Scott Lively, activist and author of The Pink Swastika, which compares homosexuality to Nazism, is quoted saying he wants Uganda to liberalize the measure.

This is all very salutary—anyone who wants to join a coalition against this abominable measure should be welcomed. But as a timely new report from the think tank Political Research Associates makes clear, the American religious right can’t evade responsibility for the homophobic mania that’s seized several African countries. Anti-gay activists in the United States may think the Uganda measure goes too far, but they laid the groundwork for it.



It’s no secret, of course, that there are strong and growing links between American and African conservatives. Rick Warren has been deeply involved in planting churches in Africa and mentoring African preachers. Breakaway factions of American mainline denominations, objecting to the ordination of gay priests and the sanctioning of gay unions, have put themselves under the authority of conservative African clerics. Few can forget the spectacle of Sarah Palin’s anointing at the hands of Thomas Muthee, a Kenyan Pentecostal and witch-hunter who has boasted of driving a woman with evil powers from her Nairobi suburb.

Meanwhile, African leaders—including many politicians—have adopted some of the American right’s most viciously homophobic rhetoric. And Uganda isn’t the first African country to step up persecution of gay people. “Since the late 1990s, the Anglican archbishops of Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria, and presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Sam Nujoma of Namibia have all used homosexuality to distract people from the issues facing their countries and churches by claiming that homosexuals are responsible for moral decay in Africa,” writes Kaoma. Earlier this year, Burundi made homosexuality a criminal offense punishable by up to two years in prison.

Even though many are aware of these trends, Political Research Associates is among the first to investigate them in a systematic way, and to provide a coherent narrative to help us understand what’s happening. No organization in the United States studies the religious right with as much rigor and depth as Political Research Associates (full disclosure—I’ve consulted for them in the past). Kaoma’s report is particularly interesting in noting the financial incentives for African preachers to foreground homophobia:

    Funding from conservatives is highly personal—only bishops with US connections receive it—and unrestricted, unlike that of mainline churches, which demand strict accountability from African churches for all the money they receive. 

Under the Bush administration, anti-gay religious organizations in Africa were further fortified with funds from PEPFAR, the United States’ AIDS program.

There is, of course, a fundamental irony in these arrangements. American conservatives have convinced their African peers that collaborating with them somehow represents a kind of anti-colonial resistance. One is almost tempted to applaud the American right’s audacity. After all, it generally opposed Africa’s national liberation movements, and often smeared the progressive churches that supported them. Now, by presenting homosexuality as the corrupt imposition of a decadent, dying West, American Christian conservatives have positioned themselves as champions of the developing world’s cultural authenticity. Meanwhile, African leaders purport to fight Americanization by aligning with some of the most powerful and chauvinistic of American religious leaders, and even taking US government money.
“When it comes to homosexuality… many African religious leaders view progressive social witness on LGBT equality as a ‘Western agenda,’” writes Kaoma. “In many respects, their denunciation of homosexuality is an attack on the West rather than a statement about human sexuality.” That’s one reason the anti-gay rhetoric prevalent in Africa often resembles modern European anti-Semitism: gay people, like Jews, are seen as subversive, foreign, and enervating, threatening the nation’s unity and virility.

Africans didn’t import their antipathy to homosexuality; indeed, one serious lacuna in the PRA report is that it largely ignores the influence of conservative Islam on the persecution of gay people on the continent. In Nigeria, gay people have been sentenced to death under Sharia, while in Muslim Senegal, gay sex is punishable by lengthy jail sentences. To ignore this altogether—particularly in a report that repeatedly criticizes the Christian right’s promotion of “Islamophobia”—seems like an unfortunate PC dodge.

Still, even if homophobia does have deep roots in Africa, the notion that gay people constitute an international conspiracy with a malevolent agenda is very much a product of the American religious right. There’s a clear connection between the domestic Christian right’s demonization of gay people and the emergence of similar themes among the movement’s allies abroad. Just as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fundamentally European fiction, despite having been embraced by many Muslims, the homophobic narratives common among Christian leaders in Africa trace back to the United States.

Like anti-Semitism, homophobia can’t necessarily be controlled by those who unleash it. Scott Lively, for example, might balk at instituting the death penalty for homosexuality, but Uganda is only taking his work to its logical conclusion. Lively, after all, has claimed, in his book The Poisoned Stream, that “a dark and powerful homosexual presence” can be traced through “the Spanish Inquisition, the French ‘Reign of Terror,’ the era of South African apartheid, and the two centuries of American slavery.” Surely, strong measures are necessary to combat something so sinister!

In March, Lively, along with Don Schmierer and the Ugandan anti-gay activist Stephen Langa, held a “Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda” in Uganda’s capital. PRA’s website contains video and text excerpts from the event. “The gay movement is an evil institution that’s goal is to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity in which there’s no restrictions on sexual conduct except the principle of mutual choice,” Lively says at one point. Later, he says, “Nobody has been able to stop them so far. I’m hoping Uganda can.”

According to Kaoma, Lively and Schmierer were “later able to meet with Ugandan parliament members and other politicians, and received access to state media to promote their views.”

Still, neither Lively nor Schmierer has anything approaching the influence of Rick Warren, a close friend of Ugandan first lady Janet Museveni. Warren, the PRA report says, “positions himself as a moderate on gay issues in the U.S. but declared in Africa in 2008 that, ‘Homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right.’ That same year he christened Uganda a ‘purpose driven country.’” (Though the report doesn’t mention it, Warren is also a patron to Martin Ssempa, one of Uganda’s leading anti-gay pastors.)

Unlike other religious right figures, Warren has yet to come out publicly against Uganda’s laws, even though, given his profile in that country, a statement by him could make a real difference. His neutrality is profoundly telling. “With the criminalization of homosexuality looming in Uganda and other African states, there is a need to start exposing US religious leaders such as Warren to an American audience,” writes Kaoma. His report is a start.

Panel is putting women's lives at risk
11/23/2009 6:50:02 AM
Comments (13)

I was amazed to hear the announcement by the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force of the new recommendations for breast cancer screenings. They now recommend mammography screening for women who are over 50, rather than 40, and do not think breast self-exam is useful.

Ask any woman and I bet she can rattle off the names of at least five women she personally knows that have been affected by the devastating diagnosis of breast cancer -- some of whom are under the age of 40, some of whom were lucky enough to detect it early by either self-exam or mammography, some of whom were not that lucky.

The timing of this is suspicious to me. It makes me wonder what other health "recommendations" may change before nationalized health care is thrust upon us.

Mary Henkel

Rochester

>>>I totally agree with Mary. The real reason that womyn's health is being put to risk is that insurance companies and sick politicians are more interested in money than health. This is outrageous and every womyn in America and every doctor and every nurse in America needs to write a letter and get involved in lobbying to stop this hateful new recomendation.  virginia of VIRGINIAINC<<<

Dynamic Diaspora: Women and Immigration

By WeNews Staff

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Vigil for Slain Puerto Rican, Gay Hate Crime Victim

Written by Robert Waddell

In response to the brutal murder of 19-year-old gay Puerto Rican George Steven Lopez Mercado, New Yorkers will gather for a vigil to protest the senseless, heinous and homophobic death of the young man. Betty-Diana Arce, wihake@optionline.net , circulated an email that read in part, "According to CNN...Mercado, was found on November 14, 2009 burned, dismembered and decapitated. Mercados arms, legs and head had been torn off before the body was dumped. Active and known in the gay community of Puerto Rico, Mercado was a victim of a brutal, disgusting and torturous hate crime. His body was left a few miles out of his home town in Caguas, literally torn limb from limb. "This grotesque crime is made worse by the response of the police. The police investigator responded to questions concerning the murder of George Steven Lopez Mercado that 'people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen.' " The incident sparked outrage in the Latino and Gay communities and a vigil was held on Sunday November 22nd at 5 p.m at Pier 45 in New York City. There will be similar vigils held in Boston, Chicago, Durham, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Organizers include GLAAD, The LGBT Community Center, Dignity, Anti-Violence Project, Latino Commission on AIDS, and the office of City Council Speaker Kathleen Quinn. In a recent My Latino Voice.com article, Pedro Julio Serrano, the first openly gay Puerto Rican politician, was quoted as saying "The God I know is full of love and compassion....to hate or judge other people....Being Gay is not a sin, homophobia is the sin." Also on emails circulated, heated over anger and fear sparked after Mercado's murder, was the historical quote from Bayard Ruskin, Civil Rights Activist and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change," wrote Rustin. "Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new "niggers" are gays. . . . It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change...The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people."

Vigil for Slain Puerto Rican, Gay Hate Crime Victim

Written by Robert Waddell

In response to the brutal murder of 19-year-old gay Puerto Rican George Steven Lopez Mercado, New Yorkers will gather for a vigil to protest the senseless, heinous and homophobic death of the young man. Betty-Diana Arce, wihake@optionline.net , circulated an email that read in part, "According to CNN...Mercado, was found on November 14, 2009 burned, dismembered and decapitated. Mercados arms, legs and head had been torn off before the body was dumped. Active and known in the gay community of Puerto Rico, Mercado was a victim of a brutal, disgusting and torturous hate crime. His body was left a few miles out of his home town in Caguas, literally torn limb from limb. "This grotesque crime is made worse by the response of the police. The police investigator responded to questions concerning the murder of George Steven Lopez Mercado that 'people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen.' " The incident sparked outrage in the Latino and Gay communities and a vigil was held on Sunday November 22nd at 5 p.m at Pier 45 in New York City. There will be similar vigils held in Boston, Chicago, Durham, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Organizers include GLAAD, The LGBT Community Center, Dignity, Anti-Violence Project, Latino Commission on AIDS, and the office of City Council Speaker Kathleen Quinn. In a recent My Latino Voice.com article, Pedro Julio Serrano, the first openly gay Puerto Rican politician, was quoted as saying "The God I know is full of love and compassion....to hate or judge other people....Being Gay is not a sin, homophobia is the sin." Also on emails circulated, heated over anger and fear sparked after Mercado's murder, was the historical quote from Bayard Ruskin, Civil Rights Activist and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change," wrote Rustin. "Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new "niggers" are gays. . . . It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change...The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people."