Bianca's Story: 'God Is Going To Punish You For Being Gay'

Bianca is what she describes as a triple threat: Latina, queer, and a woman. She is an activist, an artist, and does theater in LA. She is also co-founder of Legalize Love, "an organization that empowers the oppressed through critical pedagogy."

One might think that such a strong, energetic, creative, and self-assured individual would be the product of a compassionate and supportive family. And while that is partially true (Bianca's brothers have always been supportive, and call her a hero), Bianca's journey was anything but smooth, and she almost didn't live to tell her story.

As part of an ongoing series of videos (below), An Honest Conversation, Bianca relates her story, one that she says is not so different from other LGBT Latinos.

"My grandmother won't talk to me. She comes from El Salvador. Religion, for her, was a survival...that's how she got by. But she's using God in a way to hurt me. She openly says she's ashamed. She says, 'God is going to punish you for being gay.' She even told me once I would end up with AIDS."

"Whether you go to church every Sunday or not, it's part of the culture in a way. A lot of the Latinos in LA -- they're first generation, so they come from places where religion plays a huge role."

At a post at Cuentame, Bianca states:

Now, I come from a very conservative family, I mean I went to catholic school from the age of 4 up to 11 so I completely understand how religion and the Latin culture can keep someone in the closet for fear of losing their families...my dad doesn’t fully accept me. I mean he says he’s going to love me regardless, but the fact of the matter is he doesn’t.

He still thinks I’m going to grow out of it, and refuses to meet my girlfriend, not to mention no one from the family is to know about my choice, and lastly he refuses to talk about it. I mean who is he to judge me, he cheated on my mom and broke a marriage, however he is an out and proud republican who believes gays should not have the right to marry because it breaks the sanctity of marriage, ironic right? Parents please don’t cause that pain to your kids, what you think of them, means more to them than you may think. They need you because we live in a tough world, and if you don’t fight for them, well who will?

I know it may be hard for you, but remember (especially you moms) you gave birth to them, and when you first held them you loved them for being your child, and being queer is nothing more than being a boy or a girl, it’s who they are and it can not be changed.

Her story is unfortunately too familiar. But thankfully, as more and more young people like Bianca open up and share their stories, we can erase the shame that is brought on by religion-based bigotry, culture, and ignorance.

As I set out to help others, I really ended up helping myself. There are too many kids out there taking their lives and self-injuring because they feel like they are sinning and enough is enough! We all need to come together and speak up for them because if we don’t, who will, you know? In Lakesh, which is Mayan and means, you are my other self.

The reason why I bring this up is because has corny as it may seem we are all connected, and that is why I decided to be in the series, because I hope that my struggle can open hearts and perhaps prevent someone from being shunned, bullied, or perhaps even beaten. We are all each others keepers, and once we beginning practicing what is truly preached in the churches, we can start to move forward as a whole, and stop this taboo of queer being wrong. I understand that many latino families have their beliefs, but we can not allow for our beliefs to break our families or to take lives.

Why Not? Evolution, Videos & Rockstar Scientists

The below guest post was written by Matt Shipman, a science writer and father of three who lives in Raleigh. You can follow Matt on Twitter at @ShipLives or connect with him here on Google+. 

Evolution shouldn’t be controversial. But, in some circles, it is.

That point was driven home earlier this year via, of all things, the Miss USA competition. This year’s competitors were asked whether they thought evolution should be taught in schools. The majority of them either said no, or that creationism should receive equal time in the science curriculum.

Many girls look up to young women like the Miss USA contestants. So when these role models overwhelmingly speak out against evolution education, that’s a problem.

Normally, I would have shaken my head and moved on. But I made the mistake of posting a flippant remark on Twitter. Something to the effect of: “Someone should do something to respond.” I got called on it.

An acquaintance of mine named Dave Wescott agreed that someone should respond. Then he said that someone should be us. I saw my future free time evaporating.

Within hours we had found a small group of scientists and science communicators who were also interested in being involved. Ultimately, there were me and Dave (P.R. guys), Kevin Zelnio, Jamie Vernon and Andrea Kuszewski (scientist/science communicators). We came up with the idea of creating a video, featuring scientists, which would explain evolution and why it is important to teach evolution in schools. We wanted to avoid divisive behavior and name-calling. Instead, we thought we could convey the fact that evolution is an amazing, uplifting discovery that has served as the genesis of countless advances in many fields of science.

Then someone, I think it was Jamie, suggested that we focus exclusively on female scientists. This was a great idea. In addition to talking about evolution, we could highlight positive role models, showing that women can be scientists and researchers, as well as beauty queens.

We contacted tons of great researchers from around the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Most of them turned us down. They’d never heard of us and, after all, they were all successful scientists (which is why we contacted them). But some of them – amazingly – said they’d participate.

After months of collecting video and editing, here it is. It’s the product of a small group of people, working on their personal time, with a budget of zero dollars. It wouldn’t work at all without the videos submitted by brilliant, generous and well-spoken scientists in fields ranging from genetics to anthropology to marine biology.

It’s not perfect, but we did something good here. We did not just roll our eyes.

It’s a good reminder that creative responses to challenging problems don’t come from other people. They come from you, when you stop making excuses and decide to actually do something positive.

So check the video out. And pass it on.

Thanksgiving Terrorism: Halal Turkey!

Thanksgiving can be a stressful holiday for many. There's all the traveling, the cooking, and those awkward conversations with ideologically incompatible relatives.

As if this wasn't enough, conservative blogger Pamela Geller has issued a warning: Eating turkey may turn you into a Muslim.

America needs to wake up from their tryptophan-induced slumber, stop worrying about their creeping waistline, and start worrying about creeping Sharia.

Writing in American Thinker, Geller writes:

Did you know that the turkey you're going to enjoy on Thanksgiving Day this Thursday is probably halal? If it's a Butterball turkey, then it certainly is -- whether you like it or not. 

In my book Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance, I report at length on the meat industry's halal scandal: its established practice of not separating halal meat from non-halal meat, and not labeling halal meat as such. And back in October 2010, I reported more little-noted but explosive new revelations: that much of the meat in Europe and the United States is being processed as halal without the knowledge of the non-Muslim consumers who buy it.

For those who are unfamiliar with the word "halal," it is a term designating that a particular food (or object, action, etc.) is seen as permissible under Islamic law.

Whether you like it or not, Butterball has issued a fatwa on your fat ass.

Geller continues her holiday horror story:

A citizen activist and reader of my website AtlasShrugs.com wrote to Butterball, one of the most popular producers of Thanksgiving turkeys in the United States, asking them if their turkeys were halal. Wendy Howze, a Butterball Consumer Response Representative, responded: "Our whole turkeys are certified halal."

In a little-known strike against freedom, yet again, we are being forced into consuming meat slaughtered by means of a torturous method: Islamic slaughter.

Halal slaughter involves cutting the trachea, the esophagus, and the jugular vein, and letting the blood drain out while saying "Bismillah allahu akbar" -- in the name of Allah the greatest.

This is shocking, folks. When little Tommy and Sally fight over that last drumstick, they are unwitting terrorists in training. I don't even want to think about what that wishbone is capable of doing.

Still others refuse to do so on principle: why should we be forced to conform to Islamic norms? It's Islamic supremacism on the march, yet again.

Non-Muslims in America and Europe don't deserve to have halal turkey forced upon them in this way, without their knowledge or consent. So this Thanksgiving, fight for your freedom. Find a non-halal, non-Butterball turkey to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday. And write to Butterball and request, politely but firmly, that they stop selling only halal turkeys, and make non-halal turkeys available to Americans who still value our freedoms.

Across this great country, on Thanksgiving tables nationwide, infidel Americans are unwittingly going to be serving halal turkeys to their families this Thursday. Turkeys that are halal certified -- who wants that, especially on a day on which we are giving thanks to G-d for our freedom? I wouldn't knowingly buy a halal turkey -- would you? Halal turkey, slaughtered according to the rules of Islamic law, is just the opposite of what Thanksgiving represents: freedom and inclusiveness, neither of which are allowed for under that same Islamic law.

You got that, America? We can't let the turkey Taliban wage jihad on our day of thanks.

I mean, right?

Well, come to think of it, I have certainly eaten my share of Hebrew Nationals, and I haven't started sporting a kippah.

It's at times like these when it pays to stop for a second and think like a rational person (i.e. not Pamela Geller).

As my friend Stu said, "If you cook the turkey to an internal temperature of 165, it'll kill any Sharia that gets into it."

The GOP Thanksgiving Family Forum Debate: The Giblets

Bachmann, displaying GOP-approved gender role

On Saturday, six Republican candidates testified, wept, and proselytized in Des Moines Iowa as part of the Thanksgiving Family Forum 'debate.'

The Family Forum was billed as a "family discussion with the Republican presidential candidates." The event was sponsored by right wing organizations Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Iowa based Christian conservative organization, The Family Leader.

Two candidates did not attend the forum. The Mormon guys took a pass, and understandably so. In 2008, Focus on the Family's CitizenLink pulled an interview with Glenn Beck because of his Mormon faith.

The Deseret News reported:

James Dobson's Focus on the Family ministry has pulled from its CitizenLink Web site an article about talk show host Glenn Beck's book "The Christmas Sweater" after some complained that Beck's LDS faith is a "cult" and "false religion" and shouldn't be promoted by a Christian ministry.

And so, here in America, where there is no religious test for office, the six non-Mormon candidates sought to win over the Evangelical vote by out-weeping, out-witnessing, and out-pandering the competition.

Here are some of the more memorable quotes from the event:

• "I’ve poured a lot of water in my time." (Michele Bachmann, submitting to the female duty of pouring water for the male candidates.)

• "Go get a job. Right after you take a bath." (Newt Gingrich, to Occupy Wall Street protesters, many of which have jobs, and many of which are protesting the lack of available jobs)

• "American exceptionalism is grounded on the Judeo-Christian ethic, which is really based upon the ten commandments. The ten commandments were the foundation for our law." (Michele Bachmann, apparently not realizing that the Ten Commandments are made up of four religious edicts that have nothing to do with ethics, three one-dimensional prohibitions that are irrelevant to modern law, and three shallow absolutes that are useful but certainly not unique to the Judeo-Christian system.)

• "It was George Washington that added those last four words, ‘So help me god.’" (Michele Bachmann, once again serving up dubious history)

• "A country that has been now since 1963 relentlessly in the courts driving God out of public life shouldn’t be surprised at all the problems we have. Because we’ve in fact attempted to create a secular country, which I think is frankly a nightmare." (Newt Gingrich, thrice married, and the only Speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations.)

• "Unlike Islam, where the higher law and the civil law are the same, in our case, we have civil laws. But our civil laws have to comport with the higher law." (Rick Santorum, opposing a theocracy, while calling for a theocracy)

• "In every person's heart, in every person's soul, there is a hole that can only be filled by the Lord Jesus Christ." (Rick Perry, gunning for presidency of a country that is home to Jews, Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Wiccans, etc.)

• "That person terrifies me because they completely misunderstand how weak and how limited any human being is." (Newt, former Speaker with eighty-four ethics charges, who cheated on his wife while she was fighting cancer, on an atheist becoming president)

• "Probably the boldest statement since Lincoln’s first inaugural took on the Supreme Court over the Dred Scott decision." (Newt, on a paper that Newt wrote and published on Newt.org)

• "I always wanted to be a veterinarian ... and then He introduced me to organic chemistry, and I became a pilot in the United States Air Force." (Rick Perry, clearly becoming more skilled in debates, on God's plans.)

• "Somebody's values are going to decide what the Congress votes on or what the president of the United States in going to deal with. And the question is: Whose values? And let me tell ya, it needs to be our values -- values and virtues that this country was based upon by the Judeo-Christian Founding Fathers." (Rick Perry -- and by 'our values' he means not yours)

• "I've been driven to my knees multiple times as the governor of the State of Texas, making decisions that are life or death -- have huge impacts on people's lives. The idea that I would walk into that without God Almighty holding me up would scare me to death." (Rick Perry, on how God helped him execute over 230 people)

Sam Harris: What If We're Born In The Wrong Place, To The Wrong Parents, In The Wrong Culture, Given The Wrong Theology?

In the following video, taken from a debate with apologist William Craig, Sam Harris offers a thought-provoking view of religion from the perspective of circumstance. It's something that I have thought about often.

So many of us believe that our religion is true. We believe this with so much certainty that we don't hesitate to characterize other belief systems as incorrect.

A great majority of us are born into a religion. We are indoctrinated into our religions, whether we want to admit it or not. If we had somehow been born to a different family across the globe, in another culture, we would very likely have been indoctrinated into a completely different religion -- one which we would feel to be the one true religion. All other religions, including the one in that alternative scenario, would be false.

Beyond childhood, the religions that we are born into are further reinforced through worship and the reading of scripture. Each of us are further assured that our religions are true, because each of our holy books commands us to believe that they are true.

How are we to reconcile this? Many argue that, if a religion is true, it will find its way to us no matter where we are. We need to remember, that billions of people believe the exact same thing.

Although Harris does not delve into it, I have often extrapolated, considering the probability of Darwinian life elsewhere in the cosmos, that there are unlimited religions currently in existence -- not to mention those discarded, or yet to be conceived.

Fischer, Citing Quran, Calls For Military Ban On Muslims, Apparently Forgetting All That Bible Violence

Bryan Fischer, douchenozzle

If I didn't know any better, I would suspect that The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is an invention -- brilliant comedy-slash-performance art for the ages, joining the ranks of Tony Clifton and Neil Hamburger.

His anti-LGBT, xenophobic, extreme Christian Right views are so ridiculously over the top, you'd be crazy not to wonder if he's simply an elaborate hoax.

If his extreme ideology wasn't enough, Fischer also lacks any hint of self-awareness, spouting blatant hypocrisy at every turn.

Take his recent post at World Nut Daily, in which he doubles down on his belief that Muslims have no place in the US military.

To my knowledge, I was the first voice in America to call for stopping the practice of Muslims serving in the U.S. military. I did so the day after the Fort Hood shootings in November of 2009.

I endured a withering firestorm of criticism from friend and foe alike, and was summoned to both CNN and the Alan Colmes radio show to explain myself.

Now a prominent Tennessee legislator, Rep. Rick Womick, is joining me in this call. Said he, at a Sharia-awareness-event over the weekend, "If you believe it (the Quran), you are commanded to kill anybody who will not convert to Islam."

And of course he is right about what the Quran teaches the followers of Muhammad and Allah. There are 109 verses in the Quran, by one count, that call for violence against infidel Christians and Jews. One example will suffice: "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them" (Sura 9:5).

What part of "slay the idolaters wherever you find them" do brain-addled idolaters not understand? Muslims have been ordered by their god to kill you! What about that do you not get?

Further on:

Arresting, besieging and lying in ambush is exactly the kind of thing the United States military does to our enemies. Who are Muslims obligated to do that to? Who are the enemies of Islam that devout Muslims are ordered to arrest, besiege and ambush? Why, their fellow soldiers who believe in the God of Christianity.

It would be one thing if this ideology were covert and we were just finding out about it. But it's right there in their holy book where it has been for 1,400 years, where everybody, including our next commander in chief, can read it. It is sheer lunacy not to take this seriously.

In fact, I would suggest that I am showing more honor to Muslims than anyone else, because I am taking their religion more seriously than they are. I believe what Allah said through his Prophet, peace be upon him, that his followers have a sacred duty to slay infidel Americans. It shows a shameless lack of respect for Islam not to believe what their holy book says about their own religion. I have too much respect for Muslims and their sincerity and devotion to make that mistake.

That last paragraph is classic Fischer: Pure unadulterated hatred slathered in smarmy, patronizing righteousness.

While he is certainly correct in that the Quran is not in short supply of violent rhetoric and barbaric ideology, he seems to not also be aware that his Christian Bible is also not in short supply of the same violent rhetoric and barbaric ideology.

If Fischer wishes to ban all adherents of one religion based on the barbarism of its holy book, and the actions of some of its most extreme followers, then he might want to just call for a ban of Christians and Jews as well.

In a comparison of the Quran and the Bible for NPR, religion historian Philip Jenkins stated:

"Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible," Jenkins says.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says. "Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide."

It is called herem, and it means total annihilation. Consider the Book of 1 Samuel, when God instructs King Saul to attack the Amalekites: "And utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them," God says through the prophet Samuel. "But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

When Saul failed to do that, God took away his kingdom.

"In other words," Jenkins says, "Saul has committed a dreadful sin by failing to complete genocide. And that passage echoes through Christian history. It is often used, for example, in American stories of the confrontation with Indians — not just is it legitimate to kill Indians, but you are violating God's law if you do not."

Jenkins notes that the history of Christianity is strewn with herem. During the Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Catholic popes declared the Muslims Amalekites. In the great religious wars in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries, Protestants and Catholics each believed the other side were the Amalekites and should be utterly destroyed.

Let's have a look at some of the passages from Fischer's Bible:

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. (Deuteronomy 17:2-5)

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you. (Deuteronomy 13:6)

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (1 Samuel 15)

Surely, Fischer would be the first to state that the above passages are out of context, relate to a particular time and place in human history, and don't represent modern Christianity.

Most Muslims would say the same thing about the passages Fischer has cherry-picked from the Quran.

Violence in the Quran, [Jenkins] and others say, is largely a defense against attack.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says.

And certainly, Fischer has a point when he points to some of the sensational stories of Islamic-fueled violence in recent times. We also must understand that these acts are a whole other animal, and most modern Muslims are far less extreme in their religious views than is Fischer.

That may be the popular notion of jihad, says Waleed El-Ansary, but it's the wrong one. El-Ansary, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of South Carolina, says the Quran explicitly condemns religious aggression and the killing of civilians. And it makes the distinction between jihad — legal warfare with the proper rules of engagement — and irjaf, or terrorism.

"All of those types of incidences — [Sept. 11], Maj. Nidal Hasan and so forth — those are all examples of irjaf, not jihad," he says. According to the Quran, he says, those who practice irjaf "are going to hell."

So what's going on here? After all, we all have images of Muslim radicals flying planes into buildings, shooting up soldiers at Fort Hood, trying to detonate a bomb on an airplane on Christmas Day. How to reconcile a peaceful Quran with these violent acts?

El-Ansary says that in the past 30 years, there's been a perfect storm that has created a violent strain of Islam. The first is political: frustration at Western intervention in the Muslim world. The second is intellectual: the rise of Wahhabi Islam, a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam subscribed to by Osama bin Laden. El-Ansary says fundamentalists have distorted Islam for political purposes.

"Basically what they do is they take verses out of context and then use that to justify these egregious actions," he says.

El-Ansary says we are seeing more religious violence from Muslims now because the Islamic world is far more religious than is the West. Still, Jenkins says Judeo-Christian cultures shouldn't be smug. The Bible has plenty of violence.

"The scriptures are still there, dormant, but not dead," he says, "and they can be resurrected at any time. Witness the white supremacists who cite the murderous Phineas when calling for racial purity, or an anti-abortion activist when shooting a doctor who performs abortions.

In the end, the scholars can agree on one thing: The DNA of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam code for a lot of violence.

Pot, meet kettle.


Further reading: 30 Reasons Why Bryan Fischer is Dangerous and Must Be Stopped

Interactive Feature: In-Depth Look At USA's Religious Beliefs, Practices

USA Today often takes a beating for being America's McPaper, but every now and then, they serve up some pretty interesting stuff.

Take, for example, their 'In-Depth Look At USA's Religious Beliefs, Practices' interactive flash feature.

The graphics allow users to slice and dice data from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life's US Religious Landscape Survey. While the Pew Forum's site does have some neat interactive features (and is certainly worth checking out), the USA Today graphics serve the data up a bit differently, with breakdowns of survey responses broken down by religious affiliation, as well as a compelling topography of American faith. Users can view data for each state by clicking the state on the map.

The results often serve to confirm stereotypes: The southeast contains a large population of Evangelicals, the Northeast and the West coast have the larger 'unaffiliated' populations, and Utah is full of Mormons.

Also worth checking out are USA Today's interactive feature on shifting religious identities and their test on religious knowledge.

Screenshot below. Click here for the interactive feature.