Tag Archives: Violence

News

Gay activists pressure D.C. mayor to remove ex-gay singer from MLK memorial concert

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From Life Site News, a story about one of the most Democrat cities in America, and its Democrat mayor. (H/T Mysterious WG)

Excerpt:

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray admitted Monday that he made the final decision to remove gospel singer Donnie McClurkin from the lineup of performers at a city-sponsored concert held Saturday at the Martin Luther King memorial in respond to complaints by gay activists.

McClurkin was to have been a headline performer at the event , called “Reflections on Peace: Ghandi to King,” which marked the beginning of a planned series of events to commemorate King’s life during the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

But on Friday, several homosexual activists contacted the mayor’s office to complain about McClurkin’s inclusion in the show because the gospel singer is a vocal ex-gay who believes homosexuality is a “curse” which can be overcome through prayer and determination.  They threatened to protest the event if he was allowed to perform.  Soon after, it was announced that McClurkin would no longer be part of the program.

Initially, the mayor’s office claimed McClurkin had volunteered to step aside.  “The Arts and Humanities Commission and Donnie McClurkin’s management decided that it would be best for him to withdraw because the purpose of the event is to bring people together,” said Gray’s spokeswoman, Doxie McCoy. “Mayor Gray said the purpose of the event is to promote peace and harmony. That is what King was all about.”

But on Saturday, McClurkin posted a video to social media claiming there was nothing mutual about the decision, and that the mayor’s office told him not to come.

On Monday, Gray confirmed McClurkin’s account, telling the Washington Post, “This was an issue involving a potential controversy at an event that was going to focus on harmony and peace, and we just didn’t think that was appropriate for this event.”

McClurkin said the decision was made to placate a group of 15-20 homosexual activists.  “Fifteen or twenty people,” the gospel singer said, shaking his head, “compared to thousands upon thousands who were coming out to worship Jesus.”

Well, to be fair, gay activists and their allies in the Democrat Party aren’t really keen on worshipping Jesus, either. And not shy about preventing others from doing so.

This is not the first time former homosexuals have been subjected to campaigns of intimidation by gay activists in the nation’s capital.

The kickoff event for the first-ever “Ex-Gay Pride Month,” scheduled to be held at Family Research Council headquarters in D.C., was postponed last month after threats of protests and violence by gay activists.

And in 2007, at a county fair in the nearby suburb of Arlington, angry homosexual activists harassed and assaulted a group of ex-gays and members of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) at their fair booth.

Last year, a metro Washington school district was sued by PFOX after the superintendent publicly told students that the group’s flyers offering information on unwanted same-sex attraction and urging tolerance for those who leave the homosexual lifestyle were “reprehensible and deplorable” and labeled their contention that sexual orientation can be changed “a really, really disgusting message.”

In 2008, an American Psychological Association symposium on the role of religion in homosexual therapy to be held at the Washington Convention Center was canceled under pressure from gay activists who worried the panel might lend credibility the notion that individuals can overcome their homosexual inclinations, either through reparative therapy or other means.

“Conservatives … were going to use this event to draw credibility to the so-called reparative therapy movement,” Gene Robinson, the openly homosexual then-bishop of the Episcopal Church told the Washington Blade gay news outlet at the time, taking partial credit for the symposium’s cancellation. “It became clear to me in the last couple of weeks that just my showing up and letting this event happen…lends credibility to that so-called therapy.”

On Capitol Hill, some Democratic legislators have called for an outright ban on such therapies.  One California congresswoman introduced a resolution in the last session of Congress called “Stop Harming Our Kids” that condemns therapies aimed at changing sexual orientation, and urges states to introduce laws banning their use with minors.

So who is right about reparative therapy and ex-gay people? Let’s look at the peer-reviewed science.

This study was done by Otago University in New Zealand.

Excerpt:

Otago University researcher associate professor Elisabeth Wells has looked at the connection between adverse childhood events and sexuality and found those who experienced trauma were significantly more likely to be non-heterosexual.

The study used results from the New Zealand Mental Health Survey, which surveyed almost 13,000 people aged over 16 between 2003 and 2004.

Participants were asked whether they thought of themselves as bisexual, heterosexual or homosexual and if they had same-sex sexual experiences or relationships.

Less than one per cent of people identified themselves as homosexual, but three per cent had a same-sex encounter.

Wells said the more “adverse events” experienced in childhood – including sexual assault, rape and domestic violence – the more likely the person identified with one of the non-exclusively heterosexual groups.

She said most people from disturbed backgrounds were heterosexual.

However, the study showed a clear relationship between negative events in childhood and homosexual or bisexual relationships later in life.

I actually studied the issue of what causes homosexuality and whether it can be repaired using therapy a while back using books by medical doctors like Jeffrey Satinover and Joseph Nicolosi. (Nicolosi’s new book is here) It turns out that there are some genetic factors that make homosexuality more likely, but the real causes are environmental, e.g. – sexual abuse during childhood or failure to bond emotionally with the same-sex parent.

I wonder how many people actually go after the research when forming their opinions on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage? I always head straight for the research and debates. I think that my opponents prefer personal attacks and speech codes!

Comments to this post will be strictly filtered to stay clear of Obama’s laws restricting free speech on controversial issues.

Related posts

News

19 facts about illegal immigration

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From Doug Ross’ blog.

Excerpt: (links to mainstream sources removed)

The following are 19 very disturbing facts about illegal immigration that every American should know…

#157 percent of all households that are led by an immigrant (legal or illegal) are enrolled in at least one welfare program.

#2 According to one study, the cost to U.S. taxpayers of legalizing current illegal immigrants would be approximately 6.3 trillion dollars over the next 50 years.

#3 The Obama administration has distributed flyers that tell illegal immigrants that their immigration status will not be checked when they apply for food stamps.

#4 The Department of Homeland Security says that it has lost track of a million people that have entered this country but that appear never to have left.

#5One out of every five children living in Los Angeles County has a parent that is in the country illegally.

#6 In one recent year, taxpayers in Los Angeles County spent 600 million dollars on welfare for children of illegal immigrants.

#7 Thanks to illegal immigration, California’s overstretched health care system is on the verge of collapse. Dozens of California hospitals and emergency rooms have shut down over the past decade because they could not afford to stay open after being endlessly swamped by illegal immigrants who were simply not able to pay for the services that they were receiving. As a result, the remainder of the health care system in the state of California is now beyond overloaded. This had led to brutally long waits, diverted ambulances and even unnecessary patient deaths. At this point, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

#8 It has been estimated that U.S. taxpayers spend $12,000,000,000 a year on primary and secondary school education for the children of illegal immigrants.

#9 It is estimated that illegal aliens make up approximately 30 percent of the population in federal, state and local prisons and that the total cost of incarcerating them is more than $1.6 billion annually.

#10 The federal government actually has a website that teaches immigrants how to sign up for welfare programsonce they arrive in the United States.

#11 The Obama administration recently introduced the very first “unmanned” border station along the Texas-Mexico border.

#12 The Obama administration has sued individual states such as Arizona that have tried to crack down on illegal immigration.

#13 According to the FBI, there are approximately 1.4 million gang members living in our cities. Illegal immigration has been one of the primary factors that has fueled the growth of these gangs.

#14 As I have written about previously, there are only about 200 police officers assigned to Chicago’s Gang Enforcement Unit to handle the estimated 100,000 gang members living in the city.

#15 Mexican drug cartels make approximately 6.6 billion dollars a year “exporting” illegal drugs to the United States.

#16 It is an open secret that Mexican drug cartels are openly conducting military operations inside the United States. The handful of border patrol agents that we have guarding the border are massively outgunned and outmanned.

#17 According to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican drug cartels were actively operating in 50 different U.S. cities in 2006. By 2010, that number had skyrocketed to 1,286.

#18 Overall, more than 55,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006. That same level of violence will eventually show up in major U.S. cities unless something dramatic is done about illegal immigration.

#19 It is being projected that the Senate immigration bill will bring 33 million more people to the United States over the next decade.

Please click through to Doug’s blog post to get the links if any of these surprise you. They shouldn’t.

As always, I am in favor of increasing legal immigration by skilled immigrants. But illegal immigration is something else entirely. It is infuriating to me that the costs for all of this Democrat “generosity” to law-breaking illegal immigrants is going to be paid for by our children, who are on the hook for a $17 trillion national debt. Not only that, but it’s the poorest of the poor who have to face the problem of the drug cartels and pay the costs for the schools, hospitals and social programs that support illegal immigration.

Commentary

Suzanne Venker on the decline of men and male roles

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Fox News editorial from a woman who defends men.

Excerpt:

In November of last year, I wrote an article for Fox News called The War on Men (which I subsequently expanded to an eBook). To keep it pithy, in the piece I focused on one effect of this war: the lack of marriageable men. But there’s so much more to it. The truth is, men have become second-class citizens.

The most obvious proof is male bashing in the media. It is rampant and irrefutable. From sit-coms and commercials that portray dad as an idiot to biased news reports about the state of American men, males are pounced on left and right. And that’s just the beginning.

She talks about the problems that boys face in feminized schools, and also in university, and then explains some of the reasons why men are shying away from marriage:

When men become husbands and fathers, things get really bad. In family courts throughout America, men are routinely stripped of their rights and due process. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is easily used against them since its definition of violence is so broad that virtually any conflict between partners can be considered abuse.

“If a woman gets angry for any reason, she can simply accuse a man and men are just assumed guilty in our society,” notes Dr. Helen Smith, author of the new book, “Men on Strike.” This is particularly heinous since, as Smith adds, violence in domestic relations “is almost 50% from men and 50% from women.”

Shocked? If so, that’s in part because the media don’t believe men can be victims of domestic violence—so they don’t report it. They would rather feed off stories that paint women as victims. And in so doing, they’ve convinced America there’s a war on women.

Yet it is males who suffer in our society. From boyhood through adulthood, the White American Male must fight his way through a litany of taunts, assumptions and grievances about his very existence. His oppression is unlike anything American women have faced. Unlike women, however, men don’t organize and form groups when they’ve been persecuted. They just bow out of the game.

America needs to wake up. We have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction—from a man’s world to a woman’s world.

That’s not equality. That’s revenge.

It’s not just the American White Male who sees these problems. I am an American Brown Male, and I have the same problems.

Is she right that men and women commit domestic violence equally? That’s not what we are told in school and in the media, but let’s look at the studies and see.

Studies on domestic violence

Let’s see what’s happening with domestic violence rates in the UK.

Excerpt:

Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09.

Similar or slightly larger numbers of men were subjected to severe force in an incident with their partner, according to the same documents. The figure stood at 48.6% in 2006-07, 48.3% the next year and 37.5% in 2008-09, Home Office statistics show.

The 2008-09 bulletin states: “More than one in four women (28%) and around one in six men (16%) had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. These figures are equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million female victims of domestic abuse and 2.6 million male victims.”

In addition, “6% of women and 4% of men reported having experienced domestic abuse in the past year, equivalent to an estimated one million female victims of domestic abuse and 600,000 male victims”.

And the numbers from the government of Canada are the same.

Canada numbers:

An estimated 7% of women and 6% of men in a current or previous spousal relationship encountered spousal violence during the five years up to and including 2004, according to a comprehensive new report on family violence.

So it’s pretty even. Women are about as likely to commit violence as men are. And in lesbian relationships, the rate of domestic violence is extremely high, from 17% to 45%, depending on the study. I think in general, women are more violent when there is no man present, because they have more difficulty restraining their emotions and resolving disagreements with rational arguments instead of fist, feet and weapons.

You also see higher rates of violence by mothers against their own children, than with fathers. Mothers are more than twice as likely to abuse children as fathers. Biological fathers are programmed to protect children – it’s the stepfathers and live-in boyfriends who harm children. In fact, one of the roles of the father in the marriage is to restrain the woman’s outbursts and anger so that the children are not harmed, and to protect them from threats from outside the home, too.

The negative perception of men deters men from marrying

I am very conscious of the perception that women have of men these days. Instead of looking to men for leadership, the presumption is that our role is to entertain women. And not to make judgments or claims of knowledge. The worst part is that most women don’t know and don’t care about how men are perceived today. I think that is the worst problem for me with wanting to get married. I just don’t believe that there are any women out there who are really looking for a husband in the traditional sense of the word, and with the traditional male roles. The negative perception of men and the way that women prefer men who are non-judgmental, non-religious and ignorant are two major reasons why I personally am cold about marriage.