Ad in El Paso Times: Gays Are Putrid
The El Paso Times published a full-page ad Saturday from a right-wing priest who calls gays "immoral,""putrid," and "depraved."
The paid advertisement in the El Paso Times, titled "True Pastoral Care for Homosexuals," is from Friar Michael Rodriguez of El Paso's San Juan Bautista Catholic Church. The virulently antigay and antichoice Rodriguez first writes about showing compassion for gay people before explaining how gays are destructive sinners.
"Engaging in depraved and unnatural sexual acts will lead directly to the ruin of both the homosexual's body and soul," Rodriguez writes. "Our very anatomy cries out against the lie that homosexual acts are 'ok.'" Rodriguez closes his screed by saying we live in a "godless society" that condones homosexuality. "Reflect, first there are (a) individuals committing mortal sins of a homosexual nature; next, evil extends its tentacles to (b) society as a whole accepting homosexual and homosexual activity as 'normal"; and finally, iniquity's victory is all but sealed when (c) laws are enacted which impose the putrid homosexual ideology on everyone, while those who, rightfully resist it, are ridiculed, attacked, and persecuted," Rodriguez writes. The ad claims that the statements don't reflect the views of the El Paso Times, a newspaper that reaches more than 108,000 people daily. A phone message was left with the newspaper regarding the publication's advertising policies, but as of late Monday the call was not returned.
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MAJORITY IN GOP POLL
SAY DROP MARRIAGE ISSUE
A poll from the National Journal queried influential Republicans and found that a majority feel the issue of same-sex marriage should be avoided.
Republicans were asked their political views on gay marriage, specifically whether their party should support marriage equality (14% said yes this month, compared to 8% in April 2009), oppose it (30% said yes this month, while 50% had the same answer last year), and whether the party should avoid the issue (56%, compared to only 37% in 2009).
Some GOP insiders said they believe the country’s views on the issue are changing, so their stances should as well, while some hardliners held on to their position for ideological reasons, according to the National Journal.
Democratic insiders were also questioned on same-sex marriage — 84% said their party should support marriage equality.
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BIO OF SAL MINEO
James Franco's new gay role
Newly released photos from Sal, James Franco's passion project about late gay actor Sal Mineo, indicate that the actor isn't shying away from the homoerotic element of the tragic story
Franco optioned the rights to writer Michael Gregg Michaud's Sal Mineo, undoubtedly the definitive biography of the '50s icon. Little information about the project has been made public so far, but the film was shot in just nine days in Los Angeles, an impossibly short amount of time for any film and unheard of for a period piece.
Based on the photos and with Franco costarring as Milton Katselas, director of the play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, the play Mineo was rehearsing at the time of his murder in 1976, it's likely the film will focus solely on the last days of the actor. Further evidence is photogenic actor Val Lauren, who stars as Mineo, sports the shaggy, curly hair Mineo wore toward the end of his life.
Sal marks yet another gay-focused project for Franco, who lists acclaimed turns in Milk, Howl, and The Broken Tower on his résumé. Franco played bisexual actor James Dean, Mineo's costar in 1955's Rebel Without a Cause, in the eponymous 2001 television film. The Mineo film is expected to be released in 2013.
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U.N. Council Passes Gay Rights Resolution
In what the U.S. State Department is calling a "historic step," the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution which supports equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.
The resolution, introduced by South Africa, is the first-ever U.N. resolution on the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered persons and just narrowly passed with 23 votes in favor, 19 opposed and three abstentions.
The State Department lobbied intensively for the resolution, and despite criticism of South Africa by other African nations, the United States was not only pleased to see African leadership from South Africa but strong support from South America, Colombia and Brazil.
The resolution will commission the first-ever U.N. report on the challenges that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people face around the globe. This past March in 2011, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a statement, supported by 85 countries, on gay rights called "Ending Violence Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity."
U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has made gay rights a key focus of the State Department's human rights agenda, expressing her view that "gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights."
According to CNN, Clinton also expressed, "Men and women are harassed, beaten, subjected to sexual violence, even killed, because of who they are and whom they love. Some are driven from their homes or countries, and many who become refugees confront new threats in their countries of asylum. In some places, violence against the LGBT community is permitted by law and inflamed by public calls to violence; in others, it persists insidiously behind closed doors."
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says the vote "marks a victory for defenders of human rights.” She tells Jill Dougherty on CNN, "It sends a clear message that abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity must end."