Yearly Archives: 2005

According to the Indiana Daily Student:

About 25 members of the Old Paths Baptist Church protested Monday afternoon outside The Inner Chef, chanting anti-gay slogans, burning a gay pride flag and brandishing signs with messages like “Fags Die, God Laughs.”
Bobb Easterbrook, a clerk at the store, was the only person working there at the time.
Bloomington police officers responded to the scene but only to prevent it from getting out of hand, said Bloomington Police Department Sgt. Mick Williams. He said police did intervene, stopping protestors when they began burning the New Glory, a gay-pride variation of the American flag that features rainbow colors as the stripes.
John Lewis, pastor of the Old Paths church, said his group burned the flag there because it believes gay people will burn in hell.
“The elite city of Bloomington harbors an elitist, faggot business called The Inner Chef which openly and unabashedly claim they are against God Almighty,” Lewis said. “… We were there to cry against it. We burned the flag, and we will do it again.”
Lewis said he plans to research the legality of burning the flag and intends to burn the flag legally the next time his group protests.
This protest came less than a month after two minors stole and burned a version of the New Glory that had been hanging outside The Inner Chef’s storefront. The minors admitted to stealing the flag Oct. 8 because they thought it was “unpatriotic.”

Burning a gay flag is the equivalent of burning a cross on someone’s lawn. It’s intended to intimidate and harrass.

Regarding Indiana’s proposed Orwellian plan to criminalize “unauthorized reproduction”:
State Sen. Patricia Miller, R-Indianapolis, issued a one-sentence statement this afternoon saying: “The issue has become more complex than anticipated and will be withdrawn from consideration by the Health Finance Commission.”
Scott was lamenting yesterday that we look even more like hicks now that the entire country reacted with horror to this idea… but I think it was a very Good Thing. However creepy and dystopian the idea was, it wasn’t a dumb-ass, igner’nt idea… just a totally fascist idea. While that’s not great, what it did do was expose the right-wing, conservative (radical) Republican party for what it really is, which more people really need to catch onto, not just those of us who pay attention to the news every day.

When an amendment to the city’s Human Rights Ordinance was proposed to the city council last year which would introduce protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, the council was bombarded with e-mail from the religious right — most of it from outside of Indianapolis, and some of it from even outside the state of Indiana (generated by a campaign from the extreme religious right).
Many councilors changed their votes to dismiss the legislation, only learning later that the mail against the ordinance was not from their constituents at all.
As you can tell from this Sunday’s Indy Star article, the councilors have figured it out, especially since they’ve sat down and had meals with Indianapolis residents who would be protected by this legislation.

In Tampa, Florida, the 21-year old father of a small boy went on trial this week for killing his son, whom he was boxing with because he thought the boy was gay.

Even though the boy would shake and wet himself, his father, Ronnie Paris Jr., would box with the 3-year-old, slapping him in the head until he cried because he didn’t want his son to grow up to be “a sissy,” the boy’s mother testified Monday.
“He was trying to teach him how to fight,” said Shanita Powell, Nysheerah Paris’ sister. “He was concerned that the child might be gay.”
Even Sheldon Bostic, who was Ronnie Paris Jr.’s Bible-study friend, said he warned the father several times not to play so rough with his son.
“He really did what other fathers do – slap box,” Bostic said. “He always said he didn’t want his son growing up to be pushed around.”
“Did Ronnie use a term for that?” asked Jalal Harb, an assistant state attorney.
“He didn’t want him to be a sissy,” Bostic said.

Gene Stone at the Huffington Post has some very eloquent thoughts on the subject:

The right wing’s relentless propaganda machine has a pernicious effect throughout society. Not only does it remind gays how much they’re hated by a segment of the population, it helps convince parents who don’t know much about homosexuality that it’s evil, a perversion, something that no family could possible want in its midst. When people are exposed only to the hateful bigotry of the right, what’s the result? When taken to the extreme, infanticide — as the Tampa case reveals.
Is this really what the right wing wants? A war against homosexuality in which innocent children are slaughtered in the name of righteousness?
Sometimes, it seems that, yes indeed, this is exactly what the right wing hopes for. Because where else can such anger, hatred, and intolerance lead?

Brian Bosma, Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives and one of Indiana’s leading opponent of GLBT rights, is holding his annual “Junetoberfest” campaign fundraiser on Monday, June 13th at the Rathskellar Biergarten, right in the heart of Massachusetts Avenue, in an area whose revitalization was driven by the GLBT community.
Bosma is apparently willing to promote gay-friendly Mass Ave as a flourishing tourist and business district while simultaneously advocating the curtailing of human rights for Mass Ave’s inhabitants and their families.
To address this gross act of hypocrisy and injustice to our families, Indiana Action Network is leading a protest beginning at 5:00 PM outside the Rathskellar, where Bosma’s drunken bash is to take place. We will bring our families with us and stand together to show Brian Bosma and his ilk that our families are just as deserving of basic social rights as the “traditional” families his exclusionary agenda professes to defend.