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Homophobia At Home In Connecticut

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National debates on whether gays should indeed have civil rights—and if so, which ones—continue to inspire threads of passionate comments at a wide variety of online media sources from The New York Times to my local Patch.com blog. While I’m usually bored, amused or numb (or some combination of the three) when reading the more homophobic comments by the national community, similarly prejudiced comments from folks in the local community have, in rare moments, left me stunned and staring at my computer screen. The other day, I was embarrassed to realize I had fat tears racing away from my eyes.

Sometimes I comment, other times I don’t. Today, I’d like to share the response that won’t fit into a comment box. I fully support freedom of speech but please remember that while you’re at home typing away on your computer, you might as well be standing in a large circle of locals at the farmers’ market or town hall or outside your favorite café or restaurant while talking about “these people.” You’re talking about me, my wife, and my family.

We’re your neighbors. We’re standing here, right next to you, and you’re looking in our eyes as you talk about “those homosexuals.”

That’s exactly how close it feels as I read another “unscientific poll” posted at Patch.com by local journalist Susan Schoenberger essentially asking my neighbors what rights they think we should or shouldn’t have. Out of professional respect, I wrote a private letter to Schoenberger back in May and asked her to consider another perspective regarding a poll asking for comments about Obama’s evolving views on same-sex marriage. She didn’t respond. Perhaps she didn’t receive my message? I sent another but still no response.

Patch_s Poll_ Should the Boy Scouts Allow Local Units to Decide Whether to Admit Gays? - Granby-East Granby, CT Patch

Obviously, Schoenberger’s never experienced what it’s like to see a poll in a public forum asking the community whether her marriage to her husband should be recognized by the federal government or whether her husband should be allowed to be a scout leader or her son a scout because of their sexual orientations.

Patch’s Poll_ Should Gay People Be Afforded the Same Federal Rights in Marriage? - Granby-East Granby, CT Patch

And local journalist Ronald DeRosa has surely never had his personal life be the subject of polls such as his equally disturbing posts titled “Should Gay People Be Afforded the Same Federal Rights in Marriage?“ and “Do You Care About a Private Group’s Stance on Issues Such as Gay Rights?“ and “Should Schools Police Kids’ T-Shirt Slogans?“ illustrated by a photo of an anti-gay t-shirt worn by a Connecticut teen.

Regardless of whatever DeRosa and Schoenberger’s best intentions or personal politics may be, this sort of “community journalism” creates a very different discussion and environment than this morning’s poll regarding the U.S. Postal Service cutting Saturday deliveries.

My marriage and family is the topic that’s been proposed once again for discussion—clothed this time in the Boy Scouts of America issue. Might this have something to do with the advertisers who pay salaries and Patch.com editors’ eagerness to please AOL?

I simply ask local journalists and community members to consider the fact that gay people are probably standing in your circle outside the coffee shop. Like you, our hands are in our pockets on a cold day. And we hear, unfortunately, all you have to say about us.

Each and every comment that acknowledges our right to civil rights is profoundly appreciated. But the homophobic comments from neighbors—even if they’re in the minority, even if there’s just a couple—can be unsettling at best and heartbreaking at worst.

Surprised I was surprised, I began tweeting a series of quotes as I read comments from several polls:

Overheard in CT: I guess the homosexuals and pedophiles need somewhere to go. […] Why can’t they just form their own clubs?

Overheard in CT: most gay men do not believe in…”sexually faithful” relationships, so their arguments for “gay marriage” are specious at best

Overheard in CT: gay choice is based in a deep need to compensate for a severe lack of essential nurture…or a severe destruction of psyche

Overheard in CT: I find it amazing that homosexual behavior, which used to bring a chorus of “Ewwwws” 50 years ago, because we knew…(cont)

Overheard (cont)“…we knew it was unnatural and aberrent, now must be thought of with the same warm fuzzies as for heterosexual couples.”

Overheard in CT: We think we are enlightened, but actually our minds are being slowly boiled in the ever warming caldron of the PC-ers,

Overheard in CT: If the homosexuals come in, I would expect many parents to pull their sons out. I know I would do so.

Overheard in CT: Why not have Gay Boy Scouts of America and Lesbian Girl Scouts of America…

Overheard (cont): If they have any doubt they should be supported in being heterosexual…

Overheard in CT: The policy just says you can’t be “open” about the gay thing.

Overheard in CT: Attacks are expected when a study challenges the strident advocates of same-sex parenting.

Overheard in CT: Bravo, BSA and Chick Fil-A

Overheard in CT: I don’t give to the united way because they support gay parades and such.

Overheard in CT: I’ll be taking my scout to chick fil a …for a sandwich. That’s after I send a big check to the local scouts.

Overheard in CT: “Try joining the NAACP or any womans group if you want to know real discrimination”

Overheard in CT: “Its a real simple concept, start your own gay troop instead of forcing your beliefs on others who do not agree with you.”

Overheard in Ct: Boy scouting has has largely enjoyed the blessing of God for all its years. Let’s just not mess with success.

Overheard in CT: It’s a shame these people keep getting away with wreaking havoc on so many great institutions.

Reading these quotes now, I again feel numb. But there are moments when it feels like we’re living some sort of contemporary, virtual version of Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery” (set in another small town I lived in). Meanwhile, we’re also paying taxes that benefit our community, voting on issues that affect our community, sending our child to the local school, in line behind you as you order a sandwich, holding the door for you as you enter the post office, and reading the same papers and local blog.

“We” are part of “you.” So, as you exercise your freedom of speech, please consider addressing us and these very personal issues with the same respect you’d hopefully employ if speaking to our faces—the same respect you’d want if your sexuality and family and civil rights were being openly debated in most every public forum, everywhere you look.

And this issue is not “moot until May” as one commenter said. My wife and I will be living this issue every day for the rest of our lives.

Chivas picChivas Sandage’s first book of poems, Hidden Drive (Antrim House, 2012), places Ada with Eve in Eden and explores same-sex marriage and divorce. Her essays and poems on gay marriage have appeared in Ms. Magazine,The Naugatuck River Review, Upstreet, Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate (Prometheus Books, ‘04) and are forthcoming in Knockout Magazine. Her work has also appeared in Artful Dodge, Drunken Boat, Evergreen Review, Hampshire Life Magazine, The Hartford Courant, Manthology: Poems on the Male Experience (Univ. of Iowa Press, 2006) and Morning Song: Poems for New Parents (St. Martin’s Press, 2011). Sandage holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Bennington College. She lives in Connecticut with her wife and daughter and blogs at csandage.com.

Image, top, courtesy ACLU

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News

‘They Want Russia to Win So Badly’: GOP Congressman Blasts Far-Right House Republicans

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April 18, 2024

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A sitting Republican Congressman is harshly criticizing far-right House Republicans over their apparent support of Russia.

“I guess their reasoning is they want Russia to win so badly that they want to oust the Speaker over it. I mean that’s a strange position to take,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a three-term Texas Republican rated a hard-core conservative told CNN’s Manu Raju, in video posted Thursday. “I think they want to be in the minority too. I think that’s an obvious reality.”

Congressman Crenshaw was referring to the movement led by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), now joined by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), over the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s decision to finally put legislation on the floor to provide funding to Ukraine to support that sovereign nation in its fight against Russia.

“I’m still trying to process all the b*llsh*t,” Crenshaw added.

Crenshaw on Thursday also commented on Speaker Johnson’s remarks, stating he will hold the Ukraine funding vote regardless of attempts to oust him over it.

“To be clear, he’s being threatened for even allowing a vote to come to the floor. For allowing the constitutional process to play out as intended by our Founders. That’s a wild thing to consider, especially when his enemies consider themselves ‘conservative.’ Not conserving the painstaking constitutional process our Founders created, that’s for sure. Conserving Putin’s gains on the battlefield, more like it.”

Journalist Brian Beutler, a former editor-in-chief at Crooked Media, called it, “darkly funny to me that a pincer movement of MAGAns and leftists mock liberals for claiming the GOP works hand in glove with Russia, and then multiple conservative Republican dissenters are like ‘no it’s true, we’re lousy with Russian influence.'”

Watch Crenshaw’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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Marjorie Taylor Greene, ‘Putin’s Envoy’? Democrat’s Bills Mock Republican’s Actions

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2 hours ago

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April 18, 2024

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For years U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has been called “Pro-Putin.” As far back as 2021, her first year as a member of Congress, the question had been raised on social media: “Is Marjorie Taylor Greene a Russian asset?”

In 2022 The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s FactCheck.org reported: “Marjorie Taylor Greene Parrots Russian Talking Point on Ukraine.”

Back then, as the article highlighted, Greene had said, “there is no doubt that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s actions in Ukraine are despicable and evil.”

Now, she promotes a far more favorable view of President Vladimir Putin and his illegal war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation which the Russian autocrat wants to incorporate – at least partly – into Russia.

Just last week Greene spread demonstrably false pro-Russia talking points about a “war on Christianity” while defending and promoting President Vladimir Putin.

READ MORE: ‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

“This is a war on Christianity,” Greene told far-right propagandist Steve Bannon. “The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests. Russia is not doing that.”

That’s just plain false, as NCRM reported.

Largely in response to her strong opposition to the U.S. supporting Ukraine, and her spreading Russian disinformation and flat-out pro-Putin falsehoods, Greene’s fondness for Putin and Russia has been making headlines.

“Republicans Who Like Putin,” was the headline last month at The New York Times, which observed: “A few Republicans have gone so far as [to] speak about Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in ways that mimic Russian propaganda. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused Ukraine of having ‘a Nazi army,’ echoing language Putin used to justify the invasion.”

“The Putin Republicans Have the Upper Hand” warned Washington Monthly‘s David Atkins on Wednesday, reporting on “conservative extremists led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“They admire the strongman as a Christian nationalist leader, and won’t support Ukraine. The global consequences of their besotted love affair with the Russian strongman could be cataclysmic.”

“Russia Is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is It Happening Here Too?” The New Republic‘s Alex Finley wrote last week. The photo at the top of the page? Marjorie Taylor Greene.

READ MORE: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Finley pointed to Greene’s interview with Bannon, “about Ukraine’s persecution of Christians, which is a Kremlin talking point aimed at boosting the pro-Moscow wing of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church. The U.S. should be spending money on the border with Mexico, not on Ukraine aid? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Russia invaded Ukraine to defend itself against an expanding NATO? That’s a Kremlin talking point. Call for a cease-fire, and give Russia Crimea and eastern Ukraine? That’s a Kremlin talking point.”

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post last week ran this headline: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she ‘seriously hates’ people who support sending more aid to Ukraine: ‘Most repulsive, disgusting thing happening’.”

Then there is Greene’s obsession with Nazis. Specifically, equating Ukrainians with Nazis, which she did several times over the past week, including on Wednesday. That earned her the condemnation and wrath of U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who demanded: “Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler.”

Wednesday night, Congressman Moskowitz, known for his use of humor and sarcasm to make his points, declared: “Just submitted an amendment to Bill drafting appointing MTG [Marjorie Taylor Greene] as Putin’s Special Envoy to the United States Congress.”

Moskowitz’s amendment was in response to Congresswoman Greene’s amendments requiring members to “conscript in the Ukrainian military” if they vote for the Ukraine military funding bill, as Juliegrace Brufke reported.

READ MORE: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

The Florida Democrat wasn’t joking, as Axios’ Andrew Solender pointed out Thursday morning.

Moskowitz did not stop there.

He drafted legislation on Thursday to name the Capitol Hill offices occupied by Congresswoman Greene after the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, infamous for promoting appeasement in dealing with Adolf Hitler.

Chamberlain also signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia.

See the social media posts above or at this link.

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News

‘Afraid and Intimidated’: Trump Trial Juror Targeted by Fox News Dismissed

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4 hours ago

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April 18, 2024

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One of seven jurors selected to serve on the New York criminal trial of Donald Trump has been dismissed after telling the judge she became concerned about her ability to remain impartial. That concern came after too many identifying details about potential jurors this week were reported by the press, leading the judge to admonish the media Thursday morning.

“Although the jurors’ names are being kept confidential, the woman, a nurse, ‘conveyed that after sleeping on it overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case,’ New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan said before calling her into the room for questioning,” the Associated Press reports. “The woman said her family members and friends were questioning her about being a juror.”

Judge Merchan, after he had questioned the juror, chastised the media, specifically directing reporters to “abide by common sense” and not report jurors’ identifying information, as some in the press had done as soon as jury selection began.

“As evidenced by what’s happened already, it’s become a problem,” Judge Merchan said.

“We just lost what probably would have been a very good juror,” he noted. “She said she was afraid and intimidated by the press, all the press.”

RELATED: ‘Big Journalism Fail’: Mainstream Media Blasted Over Coverage of Historic Trump Trial

Alexander Panetta of Canada’s CBC News adds, “Merchan wants changes in the juror info that gets out to the public. He says jurors’ employer name will be redacted from court records.”

But he also reports the now-excused juror “says family and friends [said] that she had been easy to identify, based on publicly available info about her from the court. She said she definitely has concerns now.”

Merchan also “lamented that media reported another juror has an Irish accent. He asked media in the room to be more careful.”

Responding to the loss of the juror, The Atlantic’s David Drum remarked, “[Trump] juror intimidation gets results.”

The dismissed juror had been targeted by Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Tuesday (video below).

“I’m not so sure about Juror No. 2,” Watters told Fox News views.

Trump on Wednesday, appearing to violate his gag order, had targeted the jurors.

READ MORE: ‘Stop Bringing Up Nazis and Hitler’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Smacked Down by Democrats

Former state and federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch Network, commented, “Fox & Trump are coordinating to intimidate jurors.”

Mediate reported, “Donald Trump appeared to violate the gag order set forth by Judge Juan Merchan.”

“On Wednesday, Trump took to Truth Social and quoted comments made about potential jurors by Fox News host Jesse Watters on The Five Wednesday night.”

Trump quoted Watters, posting: “They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury.”

“That post appears to be in direct violation of Merchan’s gag order, a reality highlighted by JustSecurity’s Ryan Goodman,” Mediate added.

On Wednesday Watters had gone even further and presented biographical and identifying details of all seven jurors. That video is currently at the top of a pinned post on the Fox News website.

READ MORE: Fox Personality’s Tweet Called ‘Jury Tampering’ by US Congressman

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