Tarhearted.

TODAY IN WTF!

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, the current head of the Church of Latter Day Saints, has said that Mormons are now as discriminated against as the blacks were during the civil rights era. he's talking about the boycotts and protests that happened after Prop 8 passed in California, which was by and large the doing of the Mormon church.

"In their effect they are like well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation."

The nerve of this guy! After his church lead the way in removing the human rights from thousands upon thousands of Californians he has the nerve to play the victim all because some fags no longer patronize his cousin Billy's burrito restaurant or whatever? As if. 

The ability of Christians (and in this case Mormons) to play the victim while at the same time using their religious beliefs to batter minority communities is astounding. It's called a victim complex, Oaks. Read up on it.

Need I point out that this is the same church that didn't allow black members until 1978? This from the church whose founder had the following to say of blacks:

You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind .... Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings. This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin. Trace mankind down to after the flood, and then another curse is pronounced upon the same race-that they should be the 'servant of servants'; and they will be, until that curse is removed; and the Abolitionists cannot help it, nor in the least alter that decree.

Bitch, nuh-hunh.

Oh, and just for fun, here's an old LDS created cartoon that explains the tenants of Mormonism quite nicely.

There's a great post on Pam Spaulding's blog about this.

CRAZIES.

My girl Rachel Maddow had Frank Schaeffer on her show recently to talk about Evangelical Christians and it was, in a word, AMAZING.

Here is one part I particularly like. I feel like it gets to the heart of this thing.

MADDOW: How do you work to move people off of that position? It doesn’t seem like facts are relevant [to them] in trying to move people away from these beliefs.

SCHAEFFER: You don’t work to move them off this position. You move past them. Look, a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot. It’s as simple as that. And we have a village idiot in this country called fundamentalist Christianity…. There is no end to this stuff. Why? Because this subculture has as its fundamentalist faith that they distrust facts. They believe in a young earth 6,000 years old with dinosaurs [living at the same time as] human beings….  This is la-la land.

See? AMAZING. I hope against hope that people in this country are finally starting to speak out against those aggressively ignorant people who denigrate reason and expect our society to bend to their make believe. Enough is enough. No more crazies at the table.

NOTHING IS SACRED.

This story from The Arizona Daily Star just made my head explode.

Governor Jan Brewer, the leather face you see pictured, signed away domestic partner benefits that were enacted last year with one little signature. Why? Because God told her to.

This is yet another example of why the separation of church and state has to be tirelessly fought for. As liberals, we tend to try and be the party of inclusiveness, which is wonderful except when Evangelicals have spent the past twenty-five years successfully chipping away at the separation of church and state.

Social contract states that we're supposed to be respectful of each others' religions. I say bullshit. I resent the idea that I'm supposed to be respectful of people's religious beliefs, even when those beliefs seek to marginalize me and my family to second-class citizenship. I'm tired of watching reason erode because of the mouth breathers' sky god.

I say ask questions and ask them often. If people are so secure in their beliefs then they should be perfectly willing to answer questions about them. Par example: why is it okay for you to pick and choose which ancient scripture you choose to follow, revised time and time again by men, and throw away what you feel isn't relevant? How can you believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans when science proves that this isn't so? Where do you think heaven and hell exist and, assuming they don't exist on a physical plane, what exactly is the science behind all this? Etc.

We cannot afford to live in a Christian Theocracy. Theocracies are really for Muslims, and I think both religions suck about the same.

REFERENDUM 71 IS FOR ASSHOLES.

The opening of MilkMilkLemonade went really, really well last night. We had a packed house and lots of laughs and some people even seemed really moved by the end. I also think some people were offended by the crass humor, but I suppose that's too be expected. This is good old fashioned queer theater, and a comedy about cruelty to gay kids in America, so it's certaint o not fit all tastes. I'm finally to a point where I've let go of my insecurities. I'm proud as hell of the play and the work that this group of artists have done.

Speaking of cruelty to gay people: a federal judge just ruled that citizens who donated money to Washington State's Referendum 71 are to remain anonymous. From The Seattle Times:

"A federal judge has continued to keep private the names and addresses of those who signed Referendum 71, saying they likely are protected under the First Amendment and that the state failed to prove a compelling public interest in their release. U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma granted a preliminary injunction today, blocking the state from making the petitions public...The Secretary of State's Office — the defendant in the case — has said it is obligated under the state Public Records Act to release the petitions to those who request them.

"But Protect Marriage argued that the law 'chills free speech ... particularly when it is reasonably probable that those exercising their First Amendment rights would be subjected to threats and harassment.' Stephen Pidgeon, attorney with Protect Marriage, said: 'We think this is a good decision. It protects Washington voters' right to speak freely even in impassioned debate.' But Brian Zylstra, spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed, said the judge's decision 'is a step away from open government...When people sign a referendum or initiative petition, they are trying to change state law,' he said. "We believe that changing state law should be open to public view.'"

As a proud Washingtonian, I have to say this is discouraging to say the least. To catch anybody up who might not know, Washington State recently got an "everything but marriage" law giving gay couples all the same rights as heterosexual couples, save the word "marriage". Referendum 71 effectively pushed pause on that law and gives voters the opportunity to approve or reject it. It's similar to Prop 8 in California, except voters who aren't retard will want to vote "yes" of Referendum 71. Do you got that? Vote "yes". It's "yes" to approve gay marriage in Washington, unlike in California when it was "no" to vote "yes' on gay marriage. The bigots operate in double speak to confuse you, so DON'T BE HAD. Washington State, in addition to being the most beautiful part of America, is wonderful and progressive, so I pray that the voters decide not to be hateful bigots there. 

It goes without saying that this judge has missed the mark by a billion miles. It is a reaction to the boycotts and protests private citizens and their businesses faced after donating to Prop 8. Protect the identities of people who are looking to enshrine discrimination and bigotry into law? If they give their money to this hateful cause, then they deserve to have their buisinesses boycotted. Gay people have every right to know which of their neighbors is seeking to keep them second class citizens. In fact, that is the very reason these are ususlaly made public. Everybody citizen gets a vote, but each citizen is also responsible for that vote.

Let this be another lesson, to you gays. The people that seek to remove rights from others maintain that this is not about hate, that this is simply about "protecting" marriage, as if my marrying The Boyfriend would somehow make Ozzy and Harriet explode. To say this is not about hate is a bald face lie. Gay couple in Washington didn't even have the right to marry. They had a seperate but equal domestic partnership bill, and even that was too much for the "Christ loving" anti-gays. Additionally, these same bigots have sought to over turn any shred of equality the LGBT community has achieved, whether it's in employment or housing or marriage. Do not let them tell you this is about "protecting" marriage. Do not let them tell you that they don't hate you.

They hate you.

Remove all the rhetoric, remove all the buzz phrases like "prtoecting families" or "saving marriage", strip away all the "love the sinner hate the sin" garbage and you will find the simple truth. They hate you and they want you to have nothing. After all, getting punched in the gut hurts, even when the person punching you is smiling while they do. The truth, in spite of all their reassurances that this isn't personal, is that they don't feel you're deserving of equality because they don't believe you should exist. PERIOD.

UPDATE: RON PRENTICE IS STILL A PIG FART.

Look at him smiling.

If he were standing in front of me I would punch him in his greasy face.

I'm hard pressed to think of a human being I dislike more than Ron Prentice, the uber bigot who founded Protect Marriage dot com and acted as pied piper to the homophobic rats of California. He is a cruel, truly tar hearted, grinch of a man who cares nothing for California families and wouldn't know Christ if he took a dump on his lawn.

Okay, breathe. Simmer down, Josh.

Now I like him even less.

After prop 8 I used to write him letters and then post them on this blog. It was meant to be my own individual protest. I stopped doing it after a while because it hurt so much. It hurt really badly to dwell in the discrimination against me and my family in the country that I love. I'd like to think that most of the people who vote against equality, in California or elsewhere, do so out of ignorance. After all, it's hard to vote against equal rights for people that you actually know.

But then again, I have very intimate friends and even family that seem to blithely ignore that The Boyfriend and I face hideous bigotry on a near daily basis. Maybe that's because we don't openly communicate with our loved ones when something is hurtful? I honestly don't think that most straight people understand that I never, not once, felt safe as a child- that even in my own home I felt like I was in danger. I get really, really angry sometimes when my very close straight friends and family won't join me in marches or other activism. But then they'll invite me to their wedding. What do we have to do to make them understand? How much longer do we have to beg, not only for simple equality issues like marriage, but for the simplest things they take for granted, like safety?

Ron Prentice is beyond understanding. I'm an atheist, but he and his cronies are the closest things I can imagine to true evil.

Note to the fancy gays who think we ought to wait politely until 2012 before fighting this: NO.

FIGHT. NOW.

NO. NOPE. NUH-HUH.

I don't know why but this article really pissed me off. The Vatican's official newspaper praises Oscar Wilde, lord God of all dandies, for being "an aesthete and a lover of the ephemeral". There is even an anthology of witticisms that includes Wilde in a Vatican published book of quotes.

Okay, I do know why it pisses me off. Those of you who know me personally or read my blog often enough will know that one of my pet peeves is when mainstream culture steals from the gay community whilst:

a) Not even aware that they're doing it (hello Sex and the City!)

Or worse...

b) Knowing full well what they're doing- they celebrating our culture while never acknowledging the vast inequality that separates them from us. (Every show on Bravo) UPDATE: Also? The Fucking Metropolitan Museum of Art! From Band of Thebes.

Well, this shit is Bravo's line-up times a kabillion. The Catholic Church? Fuck no.

Dear Catholics,

You know how you have all those saints? Well, Oscar is one of our saints. You can't have him without taking us too. Even if he did convert in a moment of weakness.

P.S. Tell your pope to shut up already.

Thanks,
Joshua Conkel

I SMELL CRAZY.

I had an incredibly stressful day yesterday and (like a lady) I decided to take a piping hot bath, give myself a facial, and go to bed with a book. All that was missing was the candlelight and Feist album!

Anyway, I was lying there in the bath when I noticed that my hippie soap bottle was covered in craziness. Actually, that's not quite true. I'm sensitive to aesthetics and I work in Marketing for a living, so if an ad is chock full of copy to the point where it's jumbled or "busy" it's as if I don't see it. It's a sort of willful ignorance. I guess the warm water relaxed me enough to actually give the bottle a look-see though, because I spent a full five minutes wondering what the fuck I was reading. "The earth is god's spaceship." Say what? This is some heaven's gate shit. I could have spent ten or twenty minutes reading it.

Today I followed up with some research. Who is the Dr. Bronner and how does he make his magical soap? The Straight Dope clears it up:

Bronner is an 85-year old (as of 1993) German immigrant who hangs out in Escondido, California. He's not an MD or strictly speaking a rabbi, but claims he's got the equivalent of a PhD in chemistry, which I guess makes him a master chemist. He's also not your average soap maker. Whereas Messrs. Procter and Gamble dream (well, dreamt) of enzymes and long-chain fatty acids, Bronner dreams of world peace.

Bronner wants to convince mankind of the virtues of the "All-One-God-Faith," which, together with the "Moral ABC," his answer to the Ten Commandments, will unite the human race. The details of this can be a bit hard to follow. For example: "Replace half-true Socialist-fluoride poison & tax-slavery with full-truth, work-speech-press & profitsharing Socialaction! All-One! So, help build 4 billion Hannibal wind-power plants, charging 96 billion battery-banks, powering every car-factory-farm-home-monorail & pump, watering Babylon-roof-gardens & 800 billion Israel-Milorganite fruit trees, guarded by Swiss 6000 year Universal Military Training," etc.

Talking to the doc on the phone is the audio equivalent of reading one of his labels. He can be pretty linear when he wants to be, but eventually always veers off into a rap about the Essene rabbis and whatnot, delivered in a nutty-professor German accent. Believe me, it's an experience.

Bronner has had an eventful life. The son of a Jewish German soap maker, he emigrated to the U.S. and pleaded with his father to do the same when the Nazis came to power. The old man refused. One day Bronner got a postcard with the words, "You were right. --Your loving father." He never heard from his parents again.

Initially settling in the midwest, Bronner married the illegitimate daughter of a nun, who eventually became suicidal and died in a mental hospital. (He says she was tortured by the hospital guards.) He also began devising his plan for world peace. Fittingly, he took to the soapbox to promote it. One of his listeners, Fred Walcher, was so inspired that in 1945 he had himself crucified in Chicago in order to publicize the plan. (He survived.)

Later Bronner was arrested while trying to promote his plan at the University of Chicago and was committed to a mental hospital. He escaped three times, finally fleeing to California in 1947. He's been there cranking out soap and soap labels ever since.

Despite his eccentricities, Dr. Bronner has built his soap company into a prosperous concern, mostly by sheer force of personality. In the early days he would set up a table at health food conventions. If a dealer strayed within ten feet, Bronner would pounce and not let go until he'd gotten an order.

But things didn't really take off until he was discovered by the counterculture during the 60s. With the aid of his sons Jim and Ralph, who handle production and sales, he currently sells some 400,000 gallons of liquid soap and 600,000 pounds of bar soap a year. He says he's now worth $6 million--not bad, he notes drily, for somebody who's supposedly nuts.

Amazing. Dr. Bronner also has his own birth control method for you lady readers:

Bronner's birth control method involves using lemon juice and Vaseline as a spermicide.

I love you, Dr. Bronner!

THAT VOODOO YOU DO.

As much as I obsess over the occult (witchcraft, voodoo dolls, ouija boards, crystals) I do so from a kitschy perspective. I'm a pretty staunch atheist- I don't even believe in Jesus so I'm sure as hell not going to believe in this madness. I think the whole thing is silly and entertaining, but it also makes me giddy, much as it did people of the early 20th century who hosted seances in their parlors as soon as dinner parties. It's campy, fun and aesthetically pleasing!

That said, sometimes I'm reminded why I shouldn't dismiss coo-coo spirituality so quickly. I was watching New York 1 this morning when I was treated to a story about a little girl in Queens whose mother and grandmother set fire to her during a Voodoo ritual meant meant to drive out evil spirits.

The mother initially told police that she was boiling water when she was startled, causing her to spill the hot water on the little girl. The truth is much, much worse. The mother, grandmother, and a friend named Sketch (obviously) performed a ritual they referred to as Loa. A circle of rum is poured around and on the head of the person from whom the spirits are being driven and lit on fire.

The grandmother eventually poured water on the burning girl, but not before she was covered in second and third degree burns. Instead of taking her to an emergency room they gave her a bath and sent her to bed. It was a full twenty-four hours before the girl was taken to a hospital where she is now in an induced coma under treatment for her burns.

My condolences to this little girl. Here's hoping someday we've put an end to religious abuse.

I'm reminded of a recent entry on one of my favorite theater blogs, Parabasis, questioning whether or not Christian Scientists had a right to deny their children medical attention because it was against their religion.

Short answer: NO.

THE WICKER MAN, THE SENTINEL, AND THE GLAMOROUS OCCULT.

I've been meaning to write about two wonderful movies I saw recently. These are both movies I had absolutely no excuse for not having seen before. The first of the two, The Wicker Man (the original, not that Nick Cage shit), I've wanted to see for years and just got around to. The second film, The Sentinel, I'd literally never heard of despite my well-documented affection for glamorous Satanism (See: Rosemary's Baby).

The Wicker Man (1973) concerns a police detective who travels to an island off the coast of Scotland to search for a missing girl. He soon learns the island has abandoned Christianity for a pagan earth-centered rituals and comes to suspect that the girl is alive and being prepared for ritual sacrifice. In reality, the truth is much more sinister.

This movie, although having some genuinely creepy moments, is awesomely Renaissance Fairish and had the boyfriend and I using the descriptor "bonny" for days, as in the Olde English "bonny", meaning nice or good. As in the theme song of this film is called "Cornrigs are Bonny."

We both found the movie hilarious. It has GOT to be masturbation material for more than one larper and/or Wiccan (the religion that snubs fashion), as well it should be. It totally makes me wish I was a sorcerer. Also, it contains crazy musical numbers. Check out some highlights. There are also two, yes two, naked slut dance routines, one of which uses wood paneling as a percussion instrument.

God, I love the occult.

Speaking of, The Sentinel (1977) is also awesome and has found a home in my personal cannon of glamorous New York occultists movies (see again: Rosemary's Baby). A fashion model moves into a house inhabited (on the top floor) by a blind priest. She begins having strange physical problems, has trouble sleeping at night, and has some nasty flashbacks of her attempted suicide. She complains to the real estate agent of the noise caused by her strange neighbors, but finds out that the house is only occupied by the priest and herself, and ultimately discovers that she has been put in the house for a reason.

One of the highlights is a young Beverly D' Angelo playing a lesbian ballerina ghost who masturbates on camera. So chic! I have to take away point though for the films use of burn victims and the deformed as extras meant to be denizens of hell. I don't know why exactly, but it really bugged me.

Incidentally the film takes place in Brooklyn Heights, where the boyfriend works. I had him walk by the address the movie gives to make sure it was actually filmed here. Tada! Photographic evidence:

If this building is really the gat to hell, then I'm happy to call it home.

RUBEN DIAZ IS AN ASSHOLE AND A BIGOT.

New York Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr is an asshole and bigot.

Even in New York we have to suffer retarded evangelicals. I might as well live in Colorado Springs. Okay, not really, but it still bugs me.

Carry on.