Friday, February 27, 2009

Hate Group Numbers Up By 54% Since 2000



According to The Southern Poverty Law Center:


The number of hate groups operating in the United States continued to rise in 2008 and has grown by 54 percent since 2000 — an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama, according to the "Year in Hate" issue of the SPLC's Intelligence Report released today.

The SPLC identified 926 hate groups active in 2008, up more than 4 percent from the 888 groups in 2007 and far above the 602 groups documented in 2000. A list and interactive, state-by-state map of these groups can be viewed here.

As in recent years, hate groups were animated by fears of Latino immigration. This rise in hate groups has coincided with a 40 percent growth in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2007, according to FBI statistics.

Two new factors were introduced to the volatile hate movement in 2008: the faltering economy and the Obama campaign.

"Barack Obama's election has inflamed racist extremists who see it as another sign that their country is under siege by non-whites," said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report, a quarterly investigative journal that monitors the radical right. "The idea of a black man in the White House, combined with the deepening economic crisis and continuing high levels of Latino immigration, has given white supremacists a real platform on which to recruit."

Read the rest HERE.

See a MAP of the US showing where most hate groups are domiciled = everywhere!

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Today in Gay History


February 27th
Happy Birthday
Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958)


Noted poet, playwright, writer from the 1900s through the 1920s, Angelina Weld Grimké was the first African American to have a play, Rachel (1916; published in 1920), staged, and her poetry regularly appeared in journals, newspapers, and anthologies during the era now known as the Harlem Renaissance. But Grimké apparently stopped writing by the end of the 1920s, and faded into near obscurity soon thereafter.

Her work was rediscovered in the 1980s and 1990s by lesbian, gay, and bisexual scholars, who recognized that Grimké was attracted to women and men and that her inability to act on these desires both inspired her writing and contributed to her ultimately abandoning it.

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Jindal Laughing Stock of Nation



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Today in Gay History


February 26, 1983.

Denton, Texas

A debate on the topic “Resolved: That Homosexual Practice is Consistent with a Christian Life-Style” was held in the University of North Texas Auditorium under the co-sponsorship of the Philosophy Department and the Texas Gay/Lesbian Task Force. Participants were Dr. Ralph Blair of Evangelicals Concerned, centered in New York City, and local University Church of Christ Evangelist Dan Billingsley, with Dr. Pete Gunter as Moderator. Over 1000 people attended.

North Texas, 1983, 1000 attendees. The next year, the Texas Gay Rodeo Association organizes to put a Texas cowboy spin on being gay in Texas wherever.

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Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Jindal Addresses the Nation


Part 6 in a series,
"Jindal, What's Up With THAT?"

Well, Nothing really, and
now the whole nation
knows it, too.

Many politicos across
the nation were thoroughly
surprised at the
wunderkind's kinderwund.

Not the Crapauds. Its over.





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Today in Gay History


February 25, 1982
Wisconsin became the
first state to pass a
statewide civil rights
statute designed to
protect the civil rights of
gay citizens.


.....time passes...

In 2006, Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

HAPPY MARDI GRAS 2009 !

Today in Gay History


On February 24, 2004
George W. Bush




Announced that he supported a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage, reigniting the issue of marriage equality as part of the gay agenda. He did not specifically endorse the wording proposed by Representative Marilyn Musgrave which had the likelihood of also prohibiting states the ability to recognize same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. Bush did say that the wording of Musgrave's amendment "meets his principles" in protecting the "sanctity of marriage" between men and women.
The Amendment has never come to a vote, but will likely be resurrected from time to time, as politically expedient.
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Monday, February 23, 2009

HAPPY LUNDI GRAS !

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Today in Gay History


February 23, 1933

Adolf Hitler's government begins its persecution
of homosexuals with directives closing gay and
lesbian clubs, banning homophile publications,
and dissolving homosexual rights groups.

On February 1, 1942, a legal amendment formally extends the death penalty to men found guilty of having sex with each other. Thousands of people, mostly men, were sent to concentration camps and put to death wearing the pink triangle.

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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Today in Gay History


Happy Birthday, George Washington 1732-1799

No, there is NO evidence that George was gay. Here's the connection à la Six Degrees of Separation.


George was born on Feb.22, 1732, in VIRGINIA. As a matter of fact in his mind his actual birthday was on Feb. 11. The calendar was changed in 1752, going from the Julian to the Gregorian. Pope Gregory XIII caused a lot of confusion when he mandated people finally adapt to the fact there are actually 365¼ days in a year. Now this Pope Gregory was neither more or less gay than most popes,

An Episcopal priest in Richmond, Virginia named Edward Meeks "Pope" Gregory (1922–1995) conducted the first gay marriage ceremony in Richmond, Virginia in August 1978. Virginia, the home state of George Washington, who was also nominally a member of the Anglican church, having been christened thereinto as a child. Since no picture of "Pope" Gregory was available, we celebrate the rearranged birthday of that other Virginian, George Washington.

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Jindal: Selfish Child Politico



Part 5 in a series,
"Jindal, What's Up With THAT?"


Crapaud's across town homeboy, Joseph in Louisiana, over at Blagueur had this post in the last day or so.
The Crapauds think his wish is coming true.


Bobby is acting childishly less grownup than his childhood doppelg
änger.

Blagueur Sez:
OH, PLEASE Bobby. Please turn the money down.


GOP Governors Consider Turning Down Stimulus Money

U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 House Democrat, said the governors _ some of whom are said to be eyeing White House bids in 2012 _ are putting their own interests first.

"No community or constituent should be denied recovery assistance due to their governor's political ideology or political aspirations," Clyburn said Wednesday.

In fact, governors who reject some of the stimulus aid may find themselves overridden by their own legislatures because of language Clyburn included in the bill that allows lawmakers to accept the federal money even if their governors object.

He inserted the provision based on the early and vocal opposition to the stimulus plan by South Carolina's Republican governor, Mark Sanford. But it also means governors like Sanford and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal _ a GOP up-and-comer often mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential candidate _ can burnish their conservative credentials, knowing all the while that their legislatures can accept the money anyway.

Jindal said he, like Perry and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, is concerned about strings attached to the money even though his state faces a $1.7 billion budget shortfall next year.

Well, Blaguer, it seems your fondest wish is coming true. Bobby says too many strings attached to increasing unemployment compensation, and it would be too hard on businesses.

Li'l Bobby''ll just turn down that $98,000.000.00 right up front. What a compassionate dispassionate calculating little christian his Hindu parents have spawned.

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