Well, it is not really an apology to the gay soldiers he claimed to be the reason the Dutch failed to stop the massacre, but he now does say, “To be clear, the failure on the ground in Srebrenica was in no way the fault of the individual soldiers.”
Good for him.
I just read this article about military experts in the United States debating “separate facilities and separate showers” if openly gay people were allowed to serve. I then came to think of this part in a New York Times article from May 2007:
Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears—about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness—have come to pass, according to the Ministry of Defense, current and former members of the services and academics specializing in the military. The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.
Exactly. The problem is not gay people in the army but people making it an issue. And for separate showers, I want to inform you all that there are gay people everywhere. So if you can’t stand the thought of a gay person looking at you, then you will not be able to take a shower anywhere outside your own home.
This postcard reminds me of something, I can’t figure out what.
I just come home from a wonderful Seder in Copenhagen. (The Seder is a Jewish ceremonial dinner for the first night of Passover.) It is the second year I celebrate Seder with the Progressive congregation in Copenhagen, and I has become my favourite Jewish festival.
I snapped a few pictures during the evening. I thought I share some of them with you. The picture above is the most interesting. As you can see, there is an orange on the plate. Only Progressive Jews have an orange on the Seder plate. There is a story behind this new tradition. Tamara Cohen explains:
In the early 1980s, while speaking at Oberlin College Hillel [the campus Jewish organization], Susannah Heschel, a well-known Jewish feminist scholar, was introduced to an early feminist Haggadah that suggested adding a crust of bread on the seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians (which was intended to convey the idea that there’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate).Heschel felt that to put bread on the seder plate would be to accept that Jewish lesbians and gay men violate Judaism like hametz [leavened food] violates Passover. So at her next seder, she chose an orange as a symbol of inclusion of gays and lesbians and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community. She offered the orange as a symbol of the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life.
In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out—a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia of Judaism. While lecturing, Heschel often mentioned her custom as one of many feminist rituals that have been developed in the last 20 years. She writes, “Somehow, though, the typical patriarchal maneuver occurred: My idea of an orange and my intention of affirming lesbians and gay men were transformed. Now the story circulates that a man said to me that a woman belongs on the bimah [podium of a synagogue] as an orange on the seder plate. A woman’s words are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is erased. Isn’t that precisely what’s happened over the centuries to women’s ideas?”
Needless to say, gays and lesbians are not popular in Orthodox Judaism. Even in Conservative Judaism, homosexuals are being treated as second-class Jews. But in Progressive Judaism—an umbrella term for the Reform, Liberal, and Reconstructionist movements—all are considered equal in all areas. Gay Jews can get married and women can become rabbis.
There were some traditional dancing...
...and some symbolic burnt offering...
The Arab world’s foremost crazy-man, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, is host of the Arab League’s annual summit this year. He wants the organization to unite against Israel. He and the other Arab leaders intend to send “a clear message to Israel that any plan to ‘Judaize’ Jerusalem would spell doom for the Middle East peace process.”
Jerusalem has been the centre of the Jewish world since King David made it his capital about year 1000 BCE. It came under Arab control by war and occupation about 1,600 years later. And now the Arab League is complaining about Israel Judaizing the city!
Jerusalem is Jewish. It has been the Jewish capital for three thousand years. The Palestinians who have resided in the city for many generations have a legitimate claim on the right to live there, but it is bogus to say that a Palestinian state that never existed has a historic right to call Jerusalem its capital.
John Corvino remembers his own prom.
Background here.
Earlier this morning, two new rockets hit civilian areas in Israel.
“The Qatari government has forced out the moderate leadership of a popular Islamic Web site and plans to reshape it into a more religiously conservative outlet,” Hadeel Al-Shalchi reports.
Islam is in desperate need of a progressive movement. The moderate voices of IslamOnline that are now being forced to leave are not extreme in any way, what they advocate are things like men and women being able to study together and Western Muslims being active participants in their democracies. But even these slightly liberal attitudes are considered too radical in Qatar.
Perhaps these new envelopes are like that all-vegetarian bacon that some vegans eat?
This is madness:
In a tight vote Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted in favour of a resolution condemning so-called "defamation of religion."A coalition of 17 mostly Western nations, including the United States and the Netherlands, opposed the resolution, but 20 states, including China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, voted in favour. Eight states abstained.
The resolution adopted by the 47-member council was similar to one passed last year, but also included a section slamming the recent Swiss vote to ban the construction of minarets in the country.
The resolution has drawn criticism from liberal groups over concerns of infringements on freedom of speech and a bias in favour of Islamic states.
No mention of discrimination, other than anti-Muslim practices, were in the resolution. Opponents noted tight restrictions on Christians, Jews and others in states such as Saudi Arabia and Libya, which did not make it into the adopted text.
I strongly defend the freedom of religion. It is wrong for any state to limit people’s right to practice their religion. I also believe that much of the current European debate on Islam is xenophobic. Far too many people take verses from the Koran and quote them out of context in order to make Muslims a threat to human rights and democracy. But to victimize the Islamic states and their gross violation to human rights by adopting a resolution like this is madness. Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right, by so is the freedom of speech. Besides, human rights protect the rights of people, not religions. In other words, religious people are protected against state interference in their religious activities. This is not equal to religion in itself being protected, although religions—like all other cultures and belief systems—would not exist had it not been for the people. The Swiss ban on minarets is not a violation the rights of Islam; it is a violation of the rights of Muslims.
Here’s an acquaintance I never though I would see in this context. Libertarian blogger Louise Persson has been interviewed by newspaper Världen Idag, the flagship of Sweden’s Christian Right.
Nick Griffin, leader of the neo-fascist British National Party, says that he has made his party gay-friendly. I’m not convinced.
“Dutch politicians have given their support to plans to sue a retired US general who claimed gay soldiers were partly responsible for the Srebrenica massacre,” Pink News reports.
I understand why Dutch politicians and gay soldiers serving in the Dutch army are upset, but to sue an old fool in America who blames gays for the Srebrenica massacre only adds unnecessary drama. The Netherlands’ ambassador in Washington has already written an official complain and everybody with the slightest interest in the truth knows that General Jack Sheehan is a silly homophobe eager to find some small evidence of problem with gays in the military. Let the matter rest and focus on the bigger issue.
Abdullah Hakim Quick, an imam who preaches that gay people should be executed, has been invited to speak at the organization Young Swedish Muslim’s annual meeting. In a press release, the organization says it will not give in to the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights, which has demanded that the imam’s speech be cancelled. Instead, the Young Muslims are defending the homophobic imam by accusing the gay-rights activists of Islamophobia.
Gay Without Borders quoted Abdullah Hakim Quick as saying:
It is sad that the Young Muslims use accusations of Islamophobia to silence criticism of a person who himself preaches homophobia and anti-Semitism. This will only strengthen the real Islamophobes.
Paul Cantor: “Once you get past the glitz and glamour, everybody in hip-hop wishes they were a little bit Jewish.”
It absurd that some American schools prefer to cancel the prom before allowing a student to dance with a same-sex partner.
I listened to a podcast from BBC Radio today. It was a talk show and the topic was Iran and the struggle for democracy. During the show, a man who said he worked for an Iranian human-rights organization phoned in to defend the regime. Western media and the Zionists initiated the beating up of protesters in the street last summer, he said. Had it not been for America, Europe, and Israel, the young people in Teheran would never have behaved so badly.
Yeah, right!
If someone traces that call I bet they will find an office at Iran’s embassy in London.
(Cartoon from Fox & Forkum.)
This is good, but she has said the same thing before, and time is running out. While Clinton is talking, Ahmadinejad is building a bomb.
Sweden’s Minister for Justice, Beatrice Ask, wants to name and shame men who are suspected of buying sex from a prostitute, which is a crime in this country. The minister suggests that the sex-buyer’s family and friends should be informed. “It is a little like being shamed on the town square,” she says.
It is a stupid idea. The criminalization of buying sex is stupid to begin with, but to treat sex-buyers any different than other criminals is stupider still.
Per Hagwall, Johan Ingerö, and Peter Santesson-Wilson blog about it in Swedish here, here, and here.
Update posted on 25 March: Ms Ask apologizes. “I regret that I expressed myself so clumsily,” she says.
Regular readers might have noticed that I have added the Star of David to my rainbow logo next to this journal’s masthead. I thought I might write a few words about this.
The idea is that these two symbols will say something about me and this online journal. The rainbow flag is, of course, the international symbol of the contemporary gay community. In the past, gay people used a variety of symbols, the best-known being the pink triangle that Hitler’s Nazi regime forced gay men to wear on their clothing. The pink triangle is stilled used in some contexts, but most gay organizations opted for the rainbow flag in the late 1990s. I think it happened because gay people were collectively sick and tired of identifying with a symbol so closely associated with homophobic oppression.
The rainbow flag is old and have been used by many people and movements over the years. One example is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, a small province in the far east of Russia where Stalin allowed for Jews to settle and speak Yiddish. The province’s flag consists of seven narrow horizontal coloured stripes (see picture).
Although the Menorah is a far older symbol of Judaism, the Star of David is the most famous symbol nowadays. The six-point star became a Jewish symbol because Sephardic rabbis found a description of King David’s coat of arms in the Koran and decided to adopt it.
A rainbow-coloured Star of David is part of the logo of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism alongside a number of Jewish gay-rights groups.
The late Rabbi Louis Jacobs has written an informative article about the rainbow in Jewish symbolism. “The rainbow reminds Jews of God’s glory and faithfulness to the covenant,” he writes and references two sections in the Talmud where the rainbow is given a special symbolic value. “The rainbow has thus become in Jewish thought the symbol of both God’s glory as manifest in the universe and God’s faithfulness to His covenant to mankind and to the people of Israel,” Jacobs writes.
I added the Star of David to my journal’s logo because my Jewishness and issues related to Judaism, Israel, and the Jewish people are becoming increasingly more important to me. Issues related to gay rights and queer culture have been important to me since I came out in the early 1990s. Therefore, I felt it appropriate to have a logo that signalled my two most important identities and two of the most common subjects discussed in my journal. When I began blogging about seven years ago, my focus of interest was libertarian politics. A subtitle in the masthead defined my blog as a “libertarian journal”. The fight for liberty is still very important to me, but nowadays I don’t identify as strongly with a political ideology as I did a few years ago. I’m still a libertarian, though.
General Jack Sheehan’s speech before the Senate Armed Services Committee has angered the Netherlands:
Sheehan sought to counter one of the most compelling arguments for lifting the ban on gay servicemen: that many of our allies have done so without problem. He wanted to persuade committee members that, indeed, modern militaries that have “liberalized” their forces and allowed gay soldiers to serve have suffered dramatic consequences.So Sheehan blamed one of Europe’s military blunders, the inept protection of a town in Bosnia by Dutch peace-keeping forces, on these liberalizing perspectives, and in particular the policy of including gay soldiers.
The Netherlands’ ambassador in Washington has made an official statement protesting the accusation:
I take pride in the fact that lesbians and gays have served openly and with distinction in the Dutch military forces for decades, such as in Afghanistan at the moment.The military mission of Dutch UN soldiers at Srebrenica has been exhaustively studied and evaluated, nationally and internationally. There is nothing in these reports that suggests any relationship between gays serving in the military and the mass murder of Bosnian Muslims.
Could a study on Swedish chicken prove that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is not entirely accurate?
I’m watching the film 2012 on television right now. It’s a lot like Roland Emmerich’s earlier disaster films. Like The Day After Tomorrow and Independence Day, the ultimate destruction of the world as we know it—this time caused by an overly active sun and moving tectonic plates—is accompanied by American patriotism, heroic masculinity, and grand Obama-esque speeches. But one thing I have noticed in this film is the many references to religion as the source of truth. There are probably similar references in Emmerich’s other films, but I haven’t paid any attention to them. In this film, they are very in your face.
In one scene, a White House official says, “Who would have thought the religious fanatics were right all along.” In another scene, we are told that the Maya religion predicted the end-of-the-world to take place in the year 2012 and that the Maya people therefore committed suicide to avoid a painful death. In a third scene, the American president decides to spend time praying in the chapel instead of boarding Air Force One. When a man tries to convince the president to escape a certain death by boarding the plane, a secretary defends the president’s decision. “The president is praying, which under these circumstances is a very good idea,” she says—and everyone seems to agree with her. In a fourth scene, a scientist tells us that the Bible and most other religious scriptures predicted what is happening but that we were too busy to learn from these books.
I find it interesting that religion plays such an important role in a disaster film so obviously designed for young men who likes action and adventure. Religion not only serves as a way to seek comfort in a time of distress, it also validates the severity of the situation. Although the film is full of scientists who explain why the world is literally boiling over, it is religion that makes it real. I see this as an example of the oldest of theistic ideas: the theory that natural catastrophes are caused by divinity for a reason. Although humankind cannot be blamed for what the sun is doing to Earth, we are told that humanity could have done something to avoid the disaster by being more religiously observant.
A thousand Orthodox rabbis warn that disaster will hit America if gays are allowed to serve in the military. A spokesman says:
Thirteen months before 9/11, on the day New York City passed homosexual domestic partnership regulations, I joined a group of Rabbis at a City Hall prayer service, pleading with G-d not to visit disaster on the city of N.Y. We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl.
Oh dear! The argument is so strong, I have to believe it.
The British High Court of Justice has ruled that Roman Catholic child-adoption agencies are legally allowed to discriminate legally against same-sex couples. The decision is probably right. There is no way a church so devoted to homophobia would ever treat gay people fairly. Personally, however, I am not sure Catholic organizations—considering their tack record of child abuse—are best suited to care for vulnerable children. Perhaps it would be in the best interest of the children to have the adoption cases handled by some gay-rights organization instead? Someone ought to bring that argument to the High Court.
Rabbi Haviva Ner-David is right, it is high time that all Jewish denominations accept female rabbis.
A new Israeli report describes how Palestinian terror organization Hamas used children as human shields during last year’s Gaza war. It has been known for a long time that Palestinian terrorists deliberately have civilian people killed by placing them near legitimate military targets. The value of the propaganda pictures of Palestinian children killed by Israeli strikes is very effective and fuels the hostility towards Israel and Jews in the Diaspora.
Pelle Billing, my new favourite antagonist, has written a new article for Men’s News Daily. The article is about social structures, and although I don’t buy the part about identity politics being wrong (it only became problematic for white, straight men when they had to share power with blacks, gays, and women), I do find it interesting that Dr Billing writes,
Denying the impact of structures is not only ineffective, it is fairly silly too. Whenever you meet someone from a different country you immediatly notice that they speak a different language, and have different customs and traditions. How can we explain this without acknowledging the importance of cultural and societal structures?
The next step for Billing should be to acknowledge that these customs and traditions have an impact on how we judge what is in the interest of the individual. The white men of Christian origin that make up Billing’s masculinist network on Facebook are perhaps not as culturally unbiased as their self-righteous rhetoric suggests.
The National Geographic had launched a series of videos that will examine what goes on between your legs. Fascinating stuff.
Not too long ago, I sincerely thought that Lars Vilks had a genuine interest in free speech. But since it became known that a group of Muslim radicals planned to kill this Swedish artist over a silly cartoon he made in 2007, Mr Vilks’s smug face has been in all media. It has now become obvious to me that he has no interest in free speech—he is only interested in self-promotion. That’s all right. If he wants to be the Islamophobes’ new best friend, that’s fine by me. He has every right to draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad or any other religious personality, but the threat to free speech is better illustrated by the many brave people who stand up against tyrannical dictators.
It is very important that free and liberal countries protect the freedom of people like Vilks, but that does not mean we have to approve of people in need of such protection. Lars Vilks bore me and I don’t like his approach to the controversy he so deliberately created.
An YouTube video about what Apple’s iPhone 4G might look like.
“I used to think that Christianity and Marxism were the last Jewish conspiracies to con the heathen,” Richard Kostelanetz writes. Well, that conspiracy is a whole lot easier to live with than an old hag’s fantasies about Israel wanting diaspora Jews to experience anti-Semitism.
On February 22, the Knesset adopted a law under which any Israeli government entering into peace talks must claim compensation for the estimated 856,000 Jews who were forced to leave Arab countries after the establishment of the State of Israel. This is great news. Western media is very eager to remind us of the 720,000 Arabs who left Palestine prior to the 1948 assault on Israel, but few journalists bother to remind us of the many Jews who were evicted from Middle Eastern countries where they had lived for many generations.
Remember this the next time you hear sob stories about evil Zionists forcing Palestinians to leave their country.
“Two Givati Brigade infantrymen were indicted on Thursday for allegedly ordering a Palestinian boy to open bags suspected of containing bombs during Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last year,” the Jerusalem Post reports. I wonder when we will read about Hamas’s investigation into its own behaviour during the Gaza war.
The Swedish parliament now recognizes the 1915 Armenian genocide. Good!
The European Parliament calls for the immediate release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Who would have thought?
The first Palestinian rockets hit Israel since February. So far no condemnation from the international community. I figure they wait until Israel returns the fire.
You might think it’s an easy enough question, but it’s not to Congressman Eric Massa.
Colleen LaRose, an American woman known as Jihad Jane, is on the cover of every Swedish tabloid today. She is one of the eight people who allegedly planned to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks for his drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.
More here.
Update: Here are a few of the many press articles on Jihad Jane and Lars Vilks:
Eight jihadists, including one American woman, have been arrested by the police on suspicions of conspiracy to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks.
See Vilks’s controversial drawings here.
The homophobic lobby is predicting a grim future of American soldiers who talk openly about their families:
Repealing DADT [Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell] isn’t about gays serving. They already serve. Repealing DADT is about gays telling. It’s about achieving endorsement of homosexuality, and gay activist agenda items, through both military regulation and military culture.
Yes, wouldn’t it be terrifying if gay soldier stopped pretending that their boyfriends back home are girlfriends? What would this truth-telling do to the army? Truth is scary.
This is really stupid. It’s better for the army as a whole if soldiers are allowed to speak the truth without having to fear being kicked out.
Meanwhile, Palestinian activists use the American free-speech legislation to humiliate Israel. That is fine by me. Stamp on the Israeli flag all you want.
The irony is that these activists demonstrate support of Hamas, an organization that does not recognize free speech or any other civil liberty.
Unlike the friends of Hamas, I support free speech for everyone. Mocking flags should not be allowed only for the politically wicked.
A group of Jewish-American activists have had enough of Israel Apartheid Week. Read more about my opinion on Israel Apartheid Week here.
— Who are you wearing?
— Mossad.
A new poll made for the BBC World Service suggests that almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right. Madness! Internet is no more a human right than telephones or television. It is problematic that people think things like the Internet are fundamental rights when real human rights are not yet implemented throughout the world.
In December, I wrote an article on male circumcision for MalmöModeraten, a publication for the members of the Malmö chapter of the Moderate Party. In the article, I defended the freedom of religion and argued that Jews and Muslims must be allowed to perform one of the most fundamental rituals of Judaism and Islam. If the government prohibit them from doing so, it would violate a fundamental civil right.
In my article, I gave a short explanation of the various cultural background and scriptural justification for male circumcision; for example that Abraham circumcised his older son Ishmael when the boy was thirteen years old and his younger son Isaac on the boy’s eighth day.
Yesterday I received the latest issue of MalmöModeraten; I was chocked by a response that completely distorts everything I wrote. In a reply to me, local politician Elisabeth Elgh writes, “Your arguments for circumcision of small boys is based on biblical stories about Abraham’s sons where you claim that one can find that a ban on circumcision would be a violation of the freedom of religion.” Later she asks rhetorically if there are any other body parts that parents in name of religion could pay to have removed from their children. She finishes her article by stating that freedom of religion is about being able to choose religion.
It is obvious that Ms Elgh has no interest in a serious discussion. She not only fail to understand my article, she did not even read my name right.
In my article I wrote that a ban on circumcision would be to Jews and Muslims what a ban on baptism would be to Christians. A ban on any of these rituals would hit at the core of these religious cultures. It would be impossible to be a practising Jew if circumcision of boys was criminalized. Muslims might be able to adjust if a ban was restricted for younger boys.
Ms Elgh is wrong about freedom of religion. Article nine of the European Convention on Human Rights states that the every European Union citizen is free to manifest his or her religion in worship, teaching, practice, and observance. This convention was included in Sweden’s national constitution when the country became member of the EU in 1995.
My Swedish readers can compare my original article to Ms Elgh’s reply, which is pictured above. I have not yet decided if I will write a second article for the next issue of MalmöModeraten.
Update: Here’s the exact reading of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.2. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
Here’s the exact reading of Article 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is included in the Lisbon Treaty and bounding law for all EU member states since December 2009:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
There are now two European human-rights declarations that protect religious minorities’ right to practice and observe their religions.
The idea that men cannot shake hand with women is ridiculous, but it is even more ridiculous to have a government agency demand it for unemployment benefits.
To some, there is nothing more frightening than people who don’t want to boss you around.
Swedish doctor, blogger, and debater Pelle Billing says he will discredit me if I don’t do as he says. I have now removed a picture he complained about, but I suspect that he will not be happy until I remove all criticism of his despicable jargon in the debate about male circumcision.
According to Men’s News Daily’s masthead, one of Dr Billing’s core beliefs is that there “can be no intelligent discussion on gender dynamics without acknowledging innate sex differences.” Well, one of his favourite arguments against male circumcision is that there is no difference between male and female genitalia and that the bris should therefore be considered as deplorable as female genital mutilation. I might be wrong, but I think most people would consider the sexual organs the most obvious “innate sex difference” there is.
If you want to read the entry that upset Dr Billing, you will find it here. Last night I added the email correspondence between Billing and myself. It’s in Swedish, so most of you will not be able to read it. However, there is a short summary in English.
About 4,000 American Jews moved to Israel in 2009. So much for post-Zionism.
Almost half a million people have petitioned the Ugandan Parliament to drop debate on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
I spent the evening at Jägersro Trav & Galopp, a horse racing track in Malmö.
Local politicians in the tiny town of Carrickmacross in eastern Ireland have decided to remove the Israeli ambassador’s signature from its guestbook. They hope this will “send a serious message to Israel”. If the message were “never pay attention to Irish peasants”, I think it is now successfully delivered.
Interior Ministry Permanent Secretary Lazaros Savvides says the Cypriote government will soon examine the issue of making same-sex marriages legal on the island.
The Jewish Chronicle asks the question, and it seems more people say yes.
The Roman Catholic Church has a long tradition of homophobia. It says homosexuality is only one of many sins, but it singles out gay people when it comes to actual punishment and discrimination. Mafia hit men and paedophile priests are forgiven, but a man who is open about his love for another man is condemned and denied communion. It has nothing to do with the Bible, Jesus, or Christianity, it is about scapegoating. The church loves to blame a minority group of all the wrongdoings in the world. It used to be the Jews, but now it’s more convenient to have gay people suffer to make the priesthood feel better about itself.
This week, a number of Dutch gays decided they had had enough of this nonsense and arranged a protest during a mass. I don’t think it will make much difference, and I’m not even sure it is the right way to go about a protest, but I figure the gay protesters felt better about themselves afterwards. One thing I do know is that silence is death; history has taught us that oppressed minorities have nothing to gain from being stoic.
I cannot send or receive emails at the moment. Something is wrong with the mail server. Hopefully, the problem will be solved presently.
Update: I can now read emails again.
