"Please help him stop being gay..."

Dear Amy: I recently discovered that my son, who is 17, is a homosexual. We are part of a church group and I fear that if people in that group find out they will make fun of me for having a gay child. He won’t listen to reason, and he will not stop being gay.
 

I feel as if he is doing this just to get back at me for forgetting his birthday for the past three years - I have a busy work schedule. Please help him make the right choice in life by not being gay. He won’t listen to me, so maybe he will listen to you.
- Feeling Betrayed


Dear Betrayed: You could teach your son an important lesson by changing your sexuality to show him how easy it is. Try it for the next year or so: Stop being a heterosexual to demonstrate to your son that a person’s sexuality is a matter of choice – to be dictated by one’s parents, the parents’ church and social pressure.

I assume that my suggestion will evoke a reaction that your sexuality is at the core of who you are. The same is true for your son. He has a right to be accepted by his parents for being exactly who he is. When you ‘forget’ a child’s birthday, you are basically negating him as a person. It is as if your saying that you have forgotten his presence in the world. How very sad for him.

Pressuring your son to change his sexuality is wrong. If you cannot learn to accept him as he is, it might be safest for him to live elsewhere. A group that could help you and your family figure out how to navigate this is PFLAG.org. This organization is founded for parents, families, friends and allies of LGBT people, and has helped countless families through this challenge. Please research and connect with a local chapter. - Amy

 (Thanks to Justin Michael for finding this in the Press & Sun of Binghamton, New York. Amy Dickson writer)

Save our children from ENDA! E-mail your congressman now!

I was happy to see that Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake become the latest republicans to support the Employment Nondiscrimination Act passed on Thursday, 64 to 32.

They joined Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Susan Collins of Maine, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and Ron Kirk of Illinois, who is the bills co-sponsor.

 

Ten Republicans and two Independents joined the 52 Democrats to support the bill. Four Senators abstained from voting. They were getting their hair done by straight hair dressers.

This is the first time in US history that the U.S. Senate had approved any type of legislation to prohibit discrimination in a workplace environment of gay, lesbian and transgender employees.

Passing a non-discrimination law, though I think they should simply add sexual identity to the laws that already protect based on gender, race and religion, does not encourage a gay "lifestyle".  It supports our brothers and sisters, our fellow citizens and keeps them from being hurt.

Opposition in the Republican-controlled House is strong, so there is little chance the measure will become law.  It would be horable if the US  passed laws to protect it's President Barack Obama urged the House to take the bill up and said he would sign it.

"One party in one house of Congress should not stand in the way of millions of Americans who want to go to work each day and simply be judged by the job they do," the President said in a statement. "Now is the time to end this kind of discrimination in the workplace, not enable it. I urge the House Republican leadership to bring this bill to the floor for a vote and send it to my desk so I can sign it into law."

 

The bill would provide the same protections for LGBT workers as are already guaranteed on the basis of race, gender and religion, making in unlawful for employers to discriminate based on a person's "actual or perceived" sexual orientation or gender identity.

 

ENDA's  began in 1994, the first time it was introduced in Congress. Several years later, a version that only protected sexual orientation failed to get by the Senate by one vote. The bill was not brought up again for a vote until 2007 when the House passed the narrower version.

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"The Speaker believes this legislation will increase frivolous litigation and cost American jobs, especially small business jobs," said House leader Boehner's spokesman, Michael Steel.

 

Chad Griffin, president of the LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign, had harsh words for Boehner.

 

"The Speaker, of all people, should certainly know what it's like to go to work every day afraid of being fired. Instead of letting the far right trample him again, it's time for Speaker Boehner to stand with the majority of everyday Republican voters and support ENDA," Griffin said earlier this week.

Regardless proponents are applauding Senate action.

 

Opinion: It's 'way past time' for gay rights law

 

Several opponents of the measure have some real concerns, saying that ENDA will  certainly "have a chilling effect on free speech as well as religious liberty" by requiring secular businesses who have a moral objection to LGBT people to not discriminate against them.

 

(Yes, people. There are people who object to LGBT people, and therefore, would not hire them.  Frankly, I have a moral objection to most lawyers, yet I would hire them if I needed one.)

 

Here's another goody: The Traditional Values Coalition said that ENDA would hurt kids, and here's why:

 

"Young students in some states are already being confused by transgender teachers," a fact sheet supplied by the coalition read. "If ENDA passes, students and children in daycare centers all across the nation will be subjected to individuals experimenting with their gender identities."

 

Let me just gag now.

For a seriously-not-funny laugh...

Please read this, if you can can swallow hyper and ludicrous conservative drivel: http://mormonstories.org/meridian-magazines-are-you-a-liberal-mormon-by-joni-hilton/

Sister Joni Hilton has some repenting to do, and I usually don't take that stance with anyone. After all, I sit with the rest of the sinners and church and hope my God, friends and family will forgive me for the many mistakes I have made in my life. Deriding others for their band wagons is not usually my style, unless that wagon runs down innocent people -- like Sister Hilton's article on "liberal Mormons" did.

You, know.  "Liberal Mormons?"  They are the group of people that are going to hell based on her recommendations to God and the hierarchy of the church because she disagrees with them liberals, all of them, every single one she has lumped together into a hot balloon that is now hovering over the great abyss. 

I do not know Joni Hilton.  If I were sitting by her in church, I may not notice, from looking at how she dresses, or how she treats people, what she believes about her neighbors.  Based on the essay she wrote in a publication that has since recanted, Sister Hilton is pious and holy-er than you could ever hope to be.  She has stored a whole lotta oil for own personal lantern and if she were ever to share, she would first take out a full page ad to let everyone know how spiritual she is.

Please, do not seek out her upcoming book, or look on her website. When she is on Oprah, just turn the station. When she comes out with her own line of Mormon crockery or a calendar of "little reliefs from the worlds best Relief Society President, don't hand her your credit card.  Please do not support the kind of close mindedness that comes from her self-aggrandized beautiful mind.

However, if she should come out and blame her essay on her sleeping meds, try to forgive her.  She truly may not know what she does.