Friday, October 5, 2012
Russian court restricts St. Petersburg's gay propaganda law
The ruling means that pride parades and LGBT rallies are legal. The ruling also means that information about homosexuality can still be provided to minors as long as it is "neutral" in tone. That can provide a lot of confusion.
There has been a huge worldwide backlash against St. Petersburg's law this year. International figures such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Madonna have vocally condemned the law. Those who have protested the law in St. Petersburg have been arrested and/or beaten by the local police. Today's Supreme Court decision is a start, but let's hope the St. Petersburg law is completely repealed soon.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Obama 348, Romney 190: UAH astrophysicist, who got it right twice before, predicts electoral results
The way he measures the poll data and his deceptively simple median method, which have correctly predicted the last two presidential elections, show President Obama has locked up Ohio and Virginia and cemented a small, but stable lead in Florida.
Bottom line: Obama is well on his way to re-election.
"I think the operative word is disaster if you're a Republican," said Colley on Monday. "I think the operative word is confidence if you're a Democrat."
"These things can swing a lot. But it would have to swing a lot a lot."
Colley, who also runs one of the six computer rankings that help the Bowl Championship Series decide the top teams in college football, said things could change with an "October surprise." Barring that, his method has proven particularly good at accounting for momentary campaign bumps, minimizing the effect of biased polling and dialing down the margin of error to less than 1 percent in closely contested states.
Colley, who teaches statistics and physics-based modeling at the
"In '04, we only missed Hawaii."
This week, their method places Obama with 348 electoral votes. Governor Mitt Romney trails with 190. The only place Colley sees room for Romney to gain electoral votes without great difficulty would be North Carolina.
"You just feel like (Romney's) got to climb a cliff to
For his Electoral Scoreboard, Colley looks at polls conducted within the last month. He then lines them up in order, from most in favor of Obama to most in favor of Romney. He circles the poll in the middle, or the median, and awards the state to the victor of that middle poll.
In Ohio, Obama won the last 14 polls. That's 14-0, so Obama wins the state. In Florida, Obama won 12 polls to Romney's 4. So Colley awards Florida to Obama. He compared it to scoring for Olympic divers, who forfeit their lowest and highest scores.
"The beauty is it kicks out the outliers," he said.
"We would say the numbers don't dance around," said Colley, contending pundits incorrectly place too much credence in the latest poll, despite the large margin of error attached to a single poll.
The more data, the more precise the measure. So while there may only be a couple of percentage points dividing Romney and Obama in Florida, the 16 polls shrink the margin of error by more than four times, said Colley, making it smaller than the margin between the candidates.
In 2008, Colley and Gott came within two electoral votes of predicting totals. However, the median method led them to miss their predictions for Missouri and Indiana. The two swapped places. And they also missed North Dakota.
If there is a weakness in the system, it's that at times the middle poll is a tie. Colley said that was the case in Missouri and Indiana four years ago. To force a tiebreaker, they went back to the most recent poll before the one-month window. The tiebreaker hasn't proved as precise.
In 2004, when they missed Hawaii, only one poll had been conducted there. And although they doubted the validity of that poll, both believing John Kerry would win the Rainbow State, they went ahead and stuck to their mathematical model and called the state for President George W. Bush.
But they're not seeing an abundance of purple states and tied polls this year. Currently, the state most on the fence appears to be North Carolina, where five polls favored Obama, one ended in a tie and three went to Romney.
Colley said Virginia and Florida have drifted from leaning toward Romney when he began modeling on Aug. 11. He said Romney saw a bump after the Republican National Convention, but that has faded. And come November, Romney will need an even bigger bump than he received from the convention, said Colley.
For 11 years, Colley has also run one of the six computer polls that help the Bowl Championship Series rank college football teams. His poll, which adjusts for strength of schedule, currently ranks Oregon State first, with Alabama fourth.
But even he doesn't see that holding up for long. He said Oregon State, given the workings of the ColleyMatrix, benefited greatly from beating the likes of UCLA and Arizona early. Asked who he thinks should be number one based on his personal opinion: "Oh, Alabama."
"But if people wanted to know what I think they'd put me in the Harris poll," he said.
He predicts Alabama will rise quickly as the team gets into conference play. "We're still in the shakeout period."
As for the presidential race, he said he'd like to see more polls in Missouri, where all three have ended in a tie. His tiebreaker method currently awards the state to Romney, but he's less certain about that one.
Of his past success with the Electoral Scoreboard, Colley said: "I think what we learned in '04 and '08 is the polls must be pretty good."
Dan Savage Calls Tony Perkins’ Bluff To Sue Over ‘Dead Gay Kids’ Remarks
“It Gets Better” founder Dan Savage recently lashed out at the
Sue me, Tony. I’d love to see you talk about my “issues” on a witness stand.Savage’s original comments obviously occupy a rhetorical extreme that few tread upon, but they still bear truth. It’s notable, as Savage himself points out, that Perkins did nothing to rebut the remarks or clarify any particular concern for children’s well-being. He couldn’t genuinely do so anyway; by proliferating the junk-science idea that gays can and should change, FRC is causing exactly the kind of harm to which Savage refers.
I realize that this isn’t how you think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe — and you’re old enough to remember a time when — people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things about people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren’t allowed to call people like you out. You still believe you should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people with absolutely impunity — we’re all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists — and that we should have to shut up and take it because… well, I’m not sure why you think we’re not allowed to respond when you lie about us.
Maybe that’s something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.
The raw nature of Savage’s rhetoric illuminates how little accountability hate groups like FRC take for their anti-gay advocacy. Perkins’ new campaign against the Southern Poverty Law Center for the “hate group” designation — a flip for many of the conservatives rallying behind the effort — is the same kind of umbrage that obfuscates the harmful miseducation such groups churn out on a daily basis. Similarly, one of the National Organization for Marriage’s chief argument against equality is that conservatives will be labeled as “bigots,” but it then has no problem painting LGBT activists as violent or endorsing the harmful quackery that is ex-gay therapy.
Savage’s approach might not always be the most elegant, but it certainly does cut through the rhetorical muck and focus attention on the harm caused by anti-gay groups like FRC.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Contraception Video, Produced By Children Of Mary Order, Links Homosexuality With Birth Control
From The Huffpost:
A bizarre new video linking women's use of birth control pills and other chemical contraceptives to an "increase" in homosexual activity among men is making the blogosphere rounds.
Produced by a group of Roman Catholic nuns calling themselves the Children of Mary order, "You Deserve to Know the Truth: Contraception” pairs some puzzling statistics with generic clip art. The often unintentionally humorous, low-budget clip also cites a 1970s-erastudy
in which a male monkey became "confused" when female monkeys were
injected with birth control drugs, and began to have "sexual
interactions" with other males in the tribe.
"With the prevalence of contraception, it's no wonder adultery is on the rise, as is promiscuity, homosexual behavior, and even abortion due to failed contraception," the narrator proclaims.
After noting that "the entire world's population could fit quite comfortably in the state of Texas," the narrator adds, "Contraception is the path that has led us to the culture of death that is prevalent in the world today, but it doesn't have to be the path of our future." She then concludes: "If someone you know is contracepting [sic], tell them to stop. It will destroy them."
The Columbus Dispatch notes that the Children of Mary order hopes to get the video in front of Catholics in all 50 states, starting with swing states, before the U.S. presidential election in November.
Produced by a group of Roman Catholic nuns calling themselves the Children of Mary order, "You Deserve to Know the Truth: Contraception” pairs some puzzling statistics with generic clip art. The often unintentionally humorous, low-budget clip also cites a 1970s-era
"With the prevalence of contraception, it's no wonder adultery is on the rise, as is promiscuity, homosexual behavior, and even abortion due to failed contraception," the narrator proclaims.
After noting that "the entire world's population could fit quite comfortably in the state of Texas," the narrator adds, "Contraception is the path that has led us to the culture of death that is prevalent in the world today, but it doesn't have to be the path of our future." She then concludes: "If someone you know is contracepting [sic], tell them to stop. It will destroy them."
The Columbus Dispatch notes that the Children of Mary order hopes to get the video in front of Catholics in all 50 states, starting with swing states, before the U.S. presidential election in November.
Let The Battle Begin...
Lawsuit filed over California gay teen therapy law
A Christian legal group has filed a lawsuit to overturn a first-of-its-kind California law that prohibits licensed mental health professionals from practicing therapies aimed at making gay and lesbian teenagers straight.
The Pacific Justice Institute challenged the law signed Saturday by
Gov. Jerry Brown. The lawsuit was filed late Monday in U.S. District
Court in Sacramento.
The institute filed the suit on behalf of a psychiatrist and a
marriage and family therapist who is also a church pastor in San Diego.
It also names as a plaintiff Aaron Bitzer, a Culver City man who says he
has benefited from the ‘‘reparative’’ therapy.
The lawsuit claims the law, which is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, violates First Amendment and equal protection rights.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Paul Ryan: 'I Don't Have The Time' To Tell You How We'll Pay For Our Tax Plan
I can do it in two words...trickle down...
Beating a dead horse Paul.
Matt Birk: Gay Marriage Will Negatively Affect My Children
Baltimore Ravens center Matt Birk has
come out against gay marriage, saying it would negatively affect his
children.
Birk made his comments in an editorial
published Sunday in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
“Same-sex unions may not affect my
marriage specifically, but it will affect my children – the next
generation,” Birk wrote. “Ideas have consequences, and laws
shape culture. Marriage redefinition will affect the broader
well-being of children and the welfare of society. As a Christian
and a citizen, I am compelled to care about both.”
The 36-year-old Birk
added that a gay marriage ban “is not meant as an offense to
any person or group.”
“All people should be afforded their
inalienable American freedoms. There is no opposition between
providing basic human rights to everyone and preserving marriage as
the sacred union of one man and one woman.”
Birk, a St. Paul native, played a
decade for the Minnesota Vikings. He is the latest NFL player to
weigh in on the issue. Minnesota
Vikings punter Chris Kluwe and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon
Ayanbadejo have both spoken up in support of marriage rights for
gay couples.
On November 6, Minnesota voters will
decide whether to approve a constitutional amendment which would
define marriage as a heterosexual union, while Marylanders will
decide whether to uphold a marriage equality law approved by
lawmakers.
Like most Christians, Matt didn't see anything wrong with picking on, harassing and yes, the physical violence inflicted on homos when he was in high school.
People like Matt see that as just part of growing up (so long as they aren't the ones being persecuted)
He doesn't *see* anything wrong with denying gays their basic civil rights.
Matt says that everyone knows or have gay loved ones, but still he would insist on treating them as something less than human...news flash Matt...that's not love, it's the opposite of it and I'm so glad I'm not one of your gay relatives.
Once again, however, Matt like all Christians speaking out on this issue, still fail to say, exactly how will gay marriage effect him, let alone his children?
It's a pathetic excuse meant only to mask the truth...you don't like fags.
Like most Christians, Matt didn't see anything wrong with picking on, harassing and yes, the physical violence inflicted on homos when he was in high school.
People like Matt see that as just part of growing up (so long as they aren't the ones being persecuted)
He doesn't *see* anything wrong with denying gays their basic civil rights.
Matt says that everyone knows or have gay loved ones, but still he would insist on treating them as something less than human...news flash Matt...that's not love, it's the opposite of it and I'm so glad I'm not one of your gay relatives.
Once again, however, Matt like all Christians speaking out on this issue, still fail to say, exactly how will gay marriage effect him, let alone his children?
It's a pathetic excuse meant only to mask the truth...you don't like fags.
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