Visit Colorful Colorado Anyway....Most Of Us Aren't Homophobic Assholes

I'm a Coloradoan born and bred. I love my home state. I've got a "Native" bumpersticker on my truck, I know all the words to "Rocky Mountain High," and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

The Centennial State actually has a lot to be proud of when it comes to sexual freedom. Ours was the first state to give the vote to women. (Actually Wyoming did it first, but Wyoming was a territory at the time). Colorado also was the first state to legalize no-fault divorces and abortions. The cities of Boulder and Denver were among the first in the country to push anti-gay discrimination legislation.

Yeah, we've also got that ugly Amendment 2 mess in our history, and we're also responsible for James Dobson, Focus on the Family, Ted Haggard, and Marilyn Musgrave. Still, all in all, Colorado's a great place to live.

Buuuuut...

this is mindblowing.

GOP gay-rights foe says homosexuality is a sin like adultery, murder

February 23, 2009 - 4:46 PM
JOHN SCHROYER
THE GAZETTE

DENVER • Debating a gay-rights bill on the floor of the state Senate on Monday, a Republican lawmaker took the rhetoric to new heights by equating homosexuality as a sin with murder.
"I'm not saying this (homosexuality) is the only sin that's out there," said Sen. Scott Renfroe, R-Greeley. "We have murder. We have all sorts of sin. We have adultery. And we don't make laws making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal."
Other Republicans said the bill, which would allow partners of gay state employees to be covered by health care benefits, is an attempt by Democrats to chip away at a constitutional amendment voters passed in 2006 defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

***

Renfroe called homosexuality an "abomination" and an "offense to God" and argued that God created men and women so they would procreate.

He compared the nuclear family structure to the Holy Trinity and, quoting the book of Genesis, said women had been created to be "helpers" for men.

Senate Democrats defended the bill as a matter of equal rights. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, is openly gay.

"You say, up here at this microphone, that God created us in a certain structure," Veiga said.

"I will stand here today and tell you that God also created me. And the last time I checked, I am who I am, people."

And then there's this...

Schultheis: HIV testing for pregnant moms rewards ‘sexual promiscuity’
By Ernest Luning 2/25/09 1:05 PM

Democrats were outraged Wednesday morning when Republican state Sen. Dave Schultheis said he planned to vote against a bill to require HIV tests for pregnant women because the disease “stems from sexual promiscuity” and he didn’t think the Legislature should “remove the negative consequences that take place from poor behavior and unacceptable behavior.” The Colorado Springs lawmaker then proceeded to cast the lone vote against SB 179, which passed 32-1 and moves on to the House.

***

Not content to be a world-class asshole, Sen. Schultheis decided to go for galaxy-sized status later in the day.

UPDATED: State senator: HIV babies are punishment for promiscuous moms

By Wendy Norris 2/25/09 4:25 PM

State Sen. Dave Schultheis restated his opposition to a bill requiring HIV tests for pregnant women by claiming that infected babies would cause families to “see the negative consequences of that promiscuity.”


The Colorado Springs Republican with a penchant for foot-in-mouth moments tells The Rocky Mountain News in a follow-up story to Wednesday’s Senate floor controversy:

“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

Yes, Schultheis really said he is “hoping” people “have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby …”

So let me say on behalf of the enormous majority of Coloradoans who AREN'T fucking idiots, please don't hold the supreme, cruel stupidity of two shit-for-brains knuckle-dragging buttheads against the rest of us.

We're really a very nice place to live.

Yes, now time for the gratuitous nudity...

Almost a month away. Sorry about that. Here's my penance this time.

You'd think this was all part of my fiendish plan to find reasons to post nudie pics.

"Ignorance Only" Idiocy From Texas...where else?

OMFG!!!

Why am I not surprised that this is coming from the state that gave us our former President?

From the website of the Texas Freedom Network

Texas has long been held up as the poster child for abstinence-only sexuality education. In fact, Texas consistently leads the nation by a wide margin in federal abstinence education dollars more than $18 million in 2007 alone. What has not been known until this study, however, is what public schools are actually teaching students about sexuality education in their classrooms. And the news is not good.

Just Say Don’t Know: Sexuality Education in Texas Public Schools conclusively demonstrates that Texas is failing families and students when it comes to sexuality education. Classrooms are perpetuating a “conspiracy of silence” that robs young people of the reliable information they need to make responsible life decisions. Even worse, the information students do receive about sexuality and health is often grossly distorted or simply wrong.

From the report's executive summary.

Finding 1:
Most Texas students receive no instruction about human
sexuality apart from the promotion of sexual abstinence.
Materials returned for this study demonstrate that
abstinence-only programs have a stranglehold over
sexuality education in Texas. More than 96 percent of
school districts – with more than 3.7 million students
– fail to teach any medically accurate information on
responsible pregnancy and disease prevention.

Finding 3:
Sexuality education materials used in Texas schools
regularly contain factual errors and perpetuate lies and
distortions about condoms and STDs.
Regardless of one’s personal opinions about sexuality
education, we should all be able to agree on this point:
students should not be taught incorrect information
in school. Unfortunately, the numerous examples of
blatantly incorrect and misleading information in
classroom materials make clear that many Texas public
schools fail this most basic test.
Sexuality Education IN Texas Public Schools

TYPE OF FACTUAL ERROR % of Texas School Districts
Errors of any type: 41.0%
Errors related to…Condoms 40.1%
All STDs (including HIV and HPV) 38.9%
HIV (exclusively) 23.6%
HPV (exclusively) 20.9%

Condoms
Inaccurate information about condoms is the most
common type of factual error in sexuality education
materials used in Texas, occurring in 40.1 percent of
school districts. Most examples share a common purpose
and likely effect – discouraging young people from using
condoms. While many districts utilize materials that
exaggerate condom failure rates, some districts provide
more extreme examples of condom-bashing. This
student exercise used in one Central Texas school district
provides an example:

Giving a condom to a teen is just like saying, “Well
if you insist on killing yourself by jumping off the
bridge, at least wear these elbow pads – they may
protect you some.” (page 21 of report)
STDs
An astounding 38.9 percent of districts utilize
curriculum materials or presentations that contain
inaccurate information about sexually transmitted
diseases. Instruction about HIV and human
papillomavirus (HPV) is especially prone to error or
misrepresentation in Texas classrooms, though no STD
is exempt from distortion.

A number of abstinence-only curricula repeat the
decades-old and widely discredited canard “HIV is
so small it passes through a condom.” The FACTS
curriculum (used in 20 districts) provides one common
version of this argument:

Any imperfections in the contraceptive not visible
to the eye could allow sperm, STD or HIV to pass
through the latex…If a sperm cell can get through,
how much more can the HIV virus only 1/450th the
size of a sperm! (page 20 of report)

Numerous materials falsely teach students that condoms
do not provide any protection from HPV. For instance,
the WAIT Training program (used in 53 districts)
dictates that students “be told that condoms do not
appear to provide any protection from HPV, (which
causes 99% of all cervical cancer).” (page 22 of report)

Other Errors
Some of the “facts” in Texas sexuality education
materials simply defy description or categorization. One
example is this strange statement from the Wonderful
Days abstinence-only program (used in three districts):
“If a woman is dry, the sperm will die. If a woman is
wet, a baby she may get!” (page 24 of report)

The full report is here.Is it too late to ask Mexico if they still want Texas?

The LDS Church and Prop 8....shhhhhhh!!!

One of the biggest non-secrets of the recent election campaign is the fact that the Latter Day Saints sank big bucks into defeating Proposition 8 in California.

We're just now starting to get an idea of how many bucks.

Mormons admit larger role in California's Prop. 8 campaign

By Shane Goldmacher | Sacramento Bee
The Mormon church has revealed in a campaign filing that the church spent nearly $190,000 to help pass Proposition 8, the November ballot measure that banned gay marriage in California.

The disclosure comes amid an investigation by the state's campaign watchdog agency into whether the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints violated state laws by not fully disclosing its involvement during the campaign.

While many church members had donated directly to the Yes on 8 campaign – some estimates of Mormon giving range as high as $20 million – the church itself had previously reported little direct campaign activity.

But in the filing made Friday, the Mormon church reported thousands in travel expenses, such as airline tickets, hotel rooms and car rentals for the campaign. The church also reported $96,849.31 worth of "compensated staff time" – hours that church employees spent working to pass the same-sex marriage ban.

"As I read this report, it seems to raise more questions than it answers," said Fred Karger, who filed the initial complaint against the church with the Fair Political Practices Commission in November.

Karger, the founder of Californians Against Hate, a group that opposed the measure, said he believes the church was involved financially long before the first expenditure it listed in September.

"I think there is still a lot of missing parts of the report because we know they've been active since June," Karger said.

Mormon church officials could not be reached Saturday for comment.

Roman Porter, executive director of the FPPC, confirmed that the agency was investigating the complaint against the church but declined comment on specifics.

Not sure what good all this will do. It's about as difficult to ding a church for violating campaign laws as it might be to part the Red Sea. This is just an interesting illustration of the lengths to which the Holy Terrors are willing to go to shove their noses into other peoples' businesses. It's also a demonstration that as the power of the Dobsons and Robertsons (hopefully) fades, the LDS church seems willing to step in and fill the vaccuum. Don't be surprised to see Mitt Romney announce he'll be taking on President Obama by the end of 2010.

Bring it on, bitch.