"Homosexuals Are Sexual Predators": UPDATE

So wrote NC Mecklenberg County commissioner Bill James in one email from a string of several between county board members last month. His remarks were made in response to County Commissioner Chair Jennifer Roberts’ request to send a letter thanking some members of the Charlotte-area congressional delegation for their “yes” votes on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) repeal.

Roberts was to send the letter to U.S. Reps. Larry Kissell and Mel Watt and U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan.

"Homosexuals are sexual predators," wrote James.

“Allowing homosexuals to serve in the US military with the endorsement of the Mecklenburg County Commission ignores a host of serious problems related to maintaining US military readiness and effectiveness not the least of which is the current Democrat plan to allow homosexuals (male and female) to share showers with those they are attracted to.”

James added, “The US Government would not allow Hetero men and women to share showers and other personal facilities yet the leading homosexual in Congress (Barney Frank) thinks it is OK for homosexuals to do so allowing enlisted men and women to fall prey to higher ranking or more powerful homosexuals who ogle them (or worse).”

This isn't the first time James has made anti-gay comments.

He often uses derogatory language or slurs to describe LGBT people in debates or communication with fellow public officials and constituents. During debate last December on domestic partner benefits for county employees, James leaned over to his Democratic colleague, Vilma Leake, and called her son a “homo.” Leake’s son died from AIDS in the 1990s.

When Leake heard that, she replied: "Don't make me hurt you. Don't do that to me. Don't talk to me about my son."

He refused to apologize, saying "It is akin to someone whose son is an alcoholic and died from the disease, using his death from drinking as justification to have the taxpayers pay for more booze."

But there's more. This is a copy of an email that he also sent to his fellow commissioner as an official communication:

From: Commissioner Bill James
To: =emails deleted=
Sent: Friday, April 29, 2005 8:56 AM
Subject: Perversity is not diversity

You really think that a pool of people (homosexuals) where 45% of them eat feces from the rear end of another male is "normal"? If you do, you are frankly nuts.

A lifestyle where one of their past times is buying gerbils and hamsters from the pet store and cramming them up their rears in an activity called feltching? A group of people who like to urinate on their partners and call them "golden showers"? Where one of the honored members of the Gay Alliance is an organization called the "Man-Boy Love Association" that promotes sex with underage boys?

That behavior is worthy of protection? That behavior is worthy to be taught in our schools? to our children? You are one sick "Independent, white, married-heterosexual, presbyterian" if you do.
. . . . .

Pam says James loves to answer emails about his views: 
Wjames@carolina.rr.com


I just received an email from Change.Org that says the county commission is right now publicly debating whether to censure James. You can sign their petition HERE.
 
 

UPDATE (01/09/20110):

The Mecklenburg County Commissioners voted not to censure this cretin arguing in part that "board rules limit its censure power to behavior and not personal speech."

Ironically, James "later joined commissioners in unanimously adopting a resolution pledging their support for diversity, tolerance and inclusion in the community, while oppossing inflammatory speech that could hurt others."

James said he supported the resolution, in part, because he wasn't named in it and said "it won't really accomplish anything." 

He said he believed the measure was a way to put a "nice, glossy, fancy façade" on the issue as the community bids to bring the Democratic National Convention to town, and said if other commissioners were serious about standing up for sexual rights, they'd try to get state laws changed.

Fellow commissioner Vilma Leake said "no censure will ever end this public disrespect by this county commissioner." James had called her son who had died from Aids a homo.

James' remarks have also included his saying urban blacks "live in a moral sewer" and comparing illegal immigrants to drug dealers and prostitutes.

He does sort of look like Rush.
It must be the squinty eyes, fat cheeks, multiple chins,

and thin lips.

Portraits Without Faces

(CNN) -- A soldier and his shadow sit alone on wrinkled sheets. With his knees pressed tightly up against his chest, he wraps his arms around his legs and bows his head.

In another photo, a soldier stands before a mirror. His raised hand covers just enough of his reflection to protect his anonymity.

But it's not photographer Jeff Sheng from whom these men are hiding their identities.

It's the military.

Sheng's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" exhibit, two years in the making, conveys the stories of the gay and bisexual men and women who serve in the U.S. military. And because his subjects are forced to keep their sexual orientations under wraps in order to serve, Shen's photos are portraits without faces.

The Los Angeles, California-based artist said many of his subjects were grateful for the opportunity to make a statement "without fully revealing themselves and losing their jobs."

"If this person got outed, they would lose their pension, their retirement benefits -- their 20 years of service in the military would be gone," he said.

Sheng asked many of those he photographed why they continue to serve despite the inequality.

"I asked, 'Why do you still serve with this policy in place? Why would you do it?' " Sheng said. "And they all looked at me and said, 'Because it's serving the country. It's the most honorable thing that I can think of doing right now in my life.' "

Two Separate But Equally Good Court Decisions Today: Gays in the Military and Stem Cell Research

From the New York Times:

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- A federal judge in Southern California on Thursday declared the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional because it violates the First Amendment rights of gay and lesbians.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips granted a request for an injunction halting the government's ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy for gays in the military.

Phillips said the policy doesn't help military readiness and instead has a ''direct and deleterious effect'' on the armed services.

The lawsuit was the biggest legal test of the law in recent years and came amid promises by President Barack Obama that he will work to repeal the policy.

Government lawyers argued Phillips lacked the authority to issue a nationwide injunction and the issue should be decided by Congress.

From the Washington Post:

An appeals court Thursday lifted a temporary injunction barring the federal government from funding research involving human embryonic stem cell research. 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted a request from the Justice Department to stay an injunction issued Aug. 23 blocking the funding. In a major victory for supporters of the research, the court said the Obama administration could resume funding the research pending a full appeal of the case.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, ruling in a lawsuit filed by two researchers working on alternatives to the cells, said the funding violated a federal rule that prohibits federal tax money from being used for research that involves the destruction of human embryos.

Hitler Was Gay and So Were His "Brownshirts"

Let me introduce you to yet another homophobic certified nut job. His name is Bryan Fischer. He holds the lofty position of Director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy for the American Family Association (AFA).

The guy is a dedicated gay-hater, even targeting people he just thinks might be gay.

This week on AFA Radio, he claimed that not only was Adolf Hitler gay, but all his “Brownshirts” were too:

FISCHER: So Hitler himself was an active homosexual. And some people wonder, didn’t the Germans, didn’t the Nazis, persecute homosexuals? And it is true they did; they persecuted effeminate homosexuals. But Hitler recruited around him homosexuals to make up his Stormtroopers, they were his enforcers, they were his thugs. And Hitler discovered that he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough to carry out his orders, but that homosexual solders basically had no limits and the savagery and brutality they were willing to inflict on whomever Hitler sent them after. So he surrounded himself, virtually all of the Stormtroopers, the Browshirts, were male homosexuals.

Retired General blames Dutch gays for Europe's worst massacre

Moving on yet?

One more hypocritical Republican keeps it gay

California state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield) - a family values kind of guy - was picked up on a DWI in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Whether the flush on his face was due to the alcohol in his system or to being picked up after leaving a gay nightclub with an unidentified man in his car is unclear.

Frankly, I don't give a hoot in hell what Ashburn does in his spare time or who he does it with. It's the hypocrisy I have trouble with.

It's the hypocrisy of all these self-designated keepers of the faith who publicly  oppose gay rights. It's the hypocrisy of these sanctimonious stuff-shirts publicly fighting gay marriage. It's the hypocrisy of the holier-than-thou publicly carrying the banner for "Traditional Family Values."

Finally, it's the hypocrisy of publicly denouncing gays and surreptitiously going to a gay bar and picking up an unknown individual with the purpose of possibly having same-sex sex - that is if you don't get stopped for a DWI first.

Ashburn was given a field sobriety test and hauled off to the Sacramento pokey where he remained for two hours before being  released.

Tip of the Hat: TPM

H.S. Girl Can't Wear Tux in Yearbook

Way down in southwestern Mississippii, Ceara Sturgis makes no bones about being a lesbian. Everyone at her Wesson Attendance Center knows the 17-year old honor student, trumpet player and goalie on the girls' soccer team is gay.

Sturgis had her senior photograph taken last summer. When she submitted it for publication, school officials balked. No way is a girl going to wear anything other than a "drape." It's the same kind of garment women have been wearing in senior pictures since about 1901. Well, except for those institutions of learning which have chosen to move forward with the times. Broaden the mind and not the butt kind of thing.

Sturgis doesn't even own a dress -- certainly not a drape. So, it was only natural that she decided to wear a tux. She just wanted to express herself. "All I want is to be able to be me, and to be included in the yearbook."

The ACLU has given the school until Oct. 23 to respond before taking court action. Director Kristy L. Bennett said the teenager's constitutional rights are being violated and cited similar cases in other states which have been successfully challenged in court.