In response to my last post...

Okay - I wouldn't normally post a negative comment on this blog. However, I feel that it's important for people to understand that these things do still happen and give my thoughts on it.

I am often surprised at how some people believe that the fight has been won and it's time for us all to go home. While it's true that we have made some amazing progress...there are still a lot of hearts and minds we need to reach out to. Sadly, there are also a lot of people who when given the choice between dialog and hate will choose hate...

The individual who left this comment in response to my post about the recent news regarding the Boy Scouts:

Thank GOD for AIDS (used to be known as GRID).

It's a nice painful death, and strikes a**f**ing faggots down.

Whenever I hear another a** pirate has died from the GRID, I Smile.

Hopefully people you know have died from the GRID, painfully.

- Anonymous

Having been the recipient of these types of pleasant messages before...I have a few thoughts about this...

First...I should note that this person didn't make NEARLY as many grammar errors as most people who write hateful messages do. I don't know what it is about hate messages, but apparently they are exempt from proper spelling and grammar. It's doubtful that I will ever send someone hate mail, but if I did I would at least respect myself enough to have someone proofread it first.

Okay, with that small gripe out of the way, I now have to wonder about this person's motive. Something possessed this person to take a little bit of time and write out the above message. I think it's safe to assume that this person didn't know that Triangle has moderation setup for our blogs. This means that a comment can't be posted without one of us reading it first and saying it's okay. Now that's not to say that we'd stop a comment from someone who disagrees with us...but as this message clearly indicates not everyone who leaves us comments want to engage in civilized discussion.

Again, I suspect this person probably thought their comment would go live on the Internet right away and that some audience of people would then read it. This leads me to wonder what they were hoping would happen. Based on the message I think we can safely assume this person isn't interested in their comment leading to some thoughtful two-way dialog. It's really a shame that they don't want to communicate. I would really like to hear what they have to say about the Boy Scouts situation and try to understand where they're coming from. Unfortunately cheering for the death of other people doesn't really teach us much other than that this person is something of a tragic figure.

The most obvious motive is that they were trying to either discourage me or someone who might agree with me. If that's the case...I think their message is lacking in convincing anyone that not only am I wrong - but that I'm so wrong the entire movement I work on should be written off. The comment they made is very similar to a tactic I see played out on elementary school playgrounds. Child A makes a comment about some given situation...Child B doesn't like that comment and retorts with some random insult... Is this comment poster trying to tell us that rather than explain why we should abandon our cause we should simply accept this random...insult...if you can even call it that...as a reason to throw our arms up and walk away?

Seriously...if that actually worked...don't you think you'd see ads on TV that go like this "I'm Candidate B and I approve this message.... ::pause as the announcer's voice and random video footage can be seen and heard:: Don't vote for Candidate A - he's a poopy head and no one likes him....not even his own mother. In fact we don't like Candidate A so much that we hope he dies. So take that Candidate A." As bad as political ads have gotten, I take comfort in knowing that whoever wrote the above comment is clearly not in charge of writing them (yet).

Perhaps this person actually does have this opinion and is unable to figure out how to create their own blog to speak to their base (because I can assure this person that their base is unlikely to be a faithful enough reader of this blog to come back and look at comments later). If motivating their base was the goal...I think they've missed their mark. Even if someone stumbled upon this message who agreed this person...saw the comment (assuming we didn't moderate our comments and that I hadn't gotten around to deleting this one) and said "Well...at least someone out there agrees with me." I suppose that might work...but that seems like a bit of a stretch and a pretty poor use of resources. It would have been more strategic to link to my post and then comment about it on their blog.

I've had the opportunity to engage people who write messages like these before. What always amazes me is when they tell me why they did it. Often times it's never with a clear outcome...they were usually just compelled to do it without thinking of the consequences (with "role models" like George W. Bush around...I can see how they would see that as a good idea). The thing that I find almost funny...if it wasn't so sad...is that they often tell me that they were compelled to do so because of their values or their own personal beliefs.

Now I don't know about you...but generally speaking I was always told that despite how much I dislike someone or disagree with them...wishing them death or smiling when it happens is going way over the fine line. If their values are such that wishing death upon others and smiling when someone dies is acceptable...then I'm pretty happy to hear that they disagree with me. If anything - I see that as a HUGE compliment. I'd be MUCH more concerned or less motivated to continue if I learned that they actually agree with me...but would like to wish death upon others...

Sometimes they combat their obvious sudden lack of values as being religiously motivated. This REALLY does concern me and makes me even happier that we disagree on things. I consider myself a religious person. I'm very proud of my religion and it provides me with a lot of inner-peace and comfort. Maybe that's because my religious upbringing didn't teach me to wish death upon others. I have no idea what church they're attending...but it's certainly not mine... I have yet to find anything in the Bible that suggest posting the above comment is a good idea. In fact, if I may "Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her" John 8:7. I'm far from a Priest...but I think the very tone of the above comment...and the nature of folks who are so filled with hate that they post these things...leads me to believe that they are far from being without sin.

I've thought about why these people write these types of messages. I usually come back to some desire to get us to stop. This actually motivates me a great deal. Apparently our cause is becoming so successful that it apparently scares those that disagree with us so much that they will do desperate things like post some insults in response to a blog post they disagree with. These acts of desperation are somewhat comforting and a good sign of progress.

So in an odd way - I'd like to thank the person who made the above comment. I'm sorry that you are so filled with hate that you cannot even manage to have an actual dialog with me. However, it's nice to be reminded that what I'm doing and saying flies in the face of people such as yourself and the things you stand for because if you're comment is any indication of who you are...I'm glad your company is not one that I will be keeping anytime soon...

Boy Scouts evicted from Philadelphia building for homophobic policies

Below is a story about the City of Philadelphia formally ending their lease with the local council after years of debate. Essentially the city is doing this because the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) refuses to agree to comply with the cities nondiscrimination policy, which would prevent them from discriminating based on sexual orientation.

As a former Scout, but someone who has been vocally opposed to this aspect of their work…I’m pleased - but with mixed emotions. It’s sad that they’re so hell-bent on defending their stance on this issue that they’re willing to sink themselves as a result. From what I've seen and heard, it looks like it’s really destroying a lot of the organization – much more so than I think anyone thought it would. They’ve lost many of their most visible supporters (such as Steven Spielberg who publicly resigned from the Advisory Board for Scouts - after 10 years of service - in 2001 essentially citing their stance on homosexuality).

I have to imagine that some people in the Girl Scouts are preparing for the eventual collapse of BSA. It’s rather sad, but they are essentially the last scouting organization in any country where homosexuality is legal (it is still illegal in a few dozen countries) that still has a policy forbidding homosexuals from being involved.

This is a victory, but one of those bittersweet victories that we would rather not have had to force to happen in the first place… It’s ironic that they are blaming the city for hurting young people when their own bigoted behavior brought this upon themselves and did so because it is in fact hurting many more young people and adults…

On a side note...I find it very amusing that they're being evicted on June 1st - the first day of GLBT Pride Month... I think it would be wonderful if we kicked off Pride Month at this very building. Maybe a GLBT organization can even move into the building. After all...the city will be looking for someone to move in and at $1 a year...you can't beat the price!

December 6, 2007
Boy Scouts Lose Philadelphia Lease in Gay-Rights Fight
By IAN URBINA

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 4 — For three years the Philadelphia council of the Boy Scouts of America held its ground. It resisted the city’s request to change its discriminatory policy toward gay people despite threats that if it did not do so, the city would evict the group from a municipal building where the Scouts have resided practically rent free since 1928.

Hailed as the birthplace of the Boy Scouts, the Beaux Arts building is the seat of the seventh-largest chapter of the organization and the first of the more than 300 council service centers built by the Scouts around the country over the past century.

But over the years the fight between the city and the Scouts was about more than this grandiose structure in Center City.

Municipal officials said the clash stemmed from a duty to defend civil rights and an obligation to abide by a local law that bars taxpayer support for any group that discriminates. Boy Scout officials said it was about preserving their culture, protecting the right of private organizations to remain exclusive and defending traditions like requiring members to swear an oath of duty to God and prohibiting membership by anyone who is openly homosexual.

This week the Boy Scouts made their last stand and lost.

“At the end of the day, you can not be in a city-owned facility being subsidized by the taxpayers and not have language in your lease that talks about nondiscrimination,” said City Councilman Darrell L. Clarke, who represents the district where the building is located. “Negotiations are over.”

Mr. Clarke said talks ended this week when the deadline passed for the local chapter to change its policy; on June 1 the group will be evicted.

“Since we were founded, we believe that open homosexuality would be inconsistent with the values that we want to communicate with our leaders,” said Gregg Shields, national spokesman for the Boy Scouts. “A belief in God is also mentioned in the Scout oath. We believe that those values are important. Tradition is important. Our mission is to instill those values in scouts and help them make good choices over their lifetimes.”

In 2000, the Supreme Court decided a case — Boy Scouts of America v. Dale — involving an openly gay scout from New Jersey who was barred from serving as troop leader. The court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision that, as a private organization, the group had a First Amendment right to set its membership rules.

The issue became a local concern in Philadelphia in May 2003 when the national Boy Scouts held their annual meeting in the city. During the conference, a local scout challenged the organization’s policies by announcing on television that he was gay and that he was a devoted member of the organization. He was promptly dismissed by the local chapter, which is called the Cradle of Liberty Council.

Municipal officials drew the line at the Beaux Arts building because the city owns the half-acre of land where the building stands. The Boy Scouts erected the ornate building and since 1928 have leased the land from the city for a token sum of $1 a year. City officials said the market value for renting the building was about $200,000 a year, and they invited the Boy Scouts to remain as full-paying tenants.

Jeff Jubelirer, a spokesman for the local chapter, said it could not afford $200,000 a year in rent, and that such a price would require it to cut summer-camp funds for 800 needy children.

“With an epidemic of gun violence taking the lives of children almost daily in this city, it’s ironic that this administration chose to destroy programming that services thousands of children in the city,” Mr. Jubelirer said. He added that the organization serves more than 69,000 young people, mostly from the inner city, and that its programming focuses on mentoring and after-school programs instead of camping trips.

But Stacey Sobel, executive director of Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, a gay-rights advocacy group based in Philadelphia, said: “Allowing the Boy Scouts to use this building rent free sends a message that the city approves of their policy. We are not looking to kick the Boy Scouts out. We just want them to play by the same rules as everyone else in the city.”

Ms. Sobel said the city required that any organization that rented property from it agree to nondiscriminatory language in its lease. The Boy Scouts skirted the requirement by never having had to sign a lease because they were given use of the building by city ordinance in the 1920s.

Local scout leaders said they tried hard to find a compromise between the city and their own national office, and in 2005 they seemed poised to agree on a policy statement adopted by the Boy Scouts in New York, which did not renounce the prohibition against gay members, but affirmed that “prejudice, intolerance and unlawful discrimination in any form are unacceptable.”

But last year, city officials wrote Cradle of Liberty Council officials to say that suggested policy statement could not be reconciled with Philadelphia’s antidiscrimination ordinance.

On May 31, the City Council voted 16-to-1 to authorize ending the lease, though Mr. Clarke and other Council members continued trying to negotiate a settlement. Those efforts ended this week, Mr. Clarke said, adding that he had shifted his energy toward trying to see if there was a way the city could reimburse the group for improvements it had made to the property over the years.

Boy Scout officials said they do not have a cost estimate for the improvements, but Mr. Jubelirer said it would exceed $5 million.

Flipping through an aged book of fund-raising encouragement for construction of the building — from dignitaries like Helen Keller, Babe Ruth and Winston Churchill — Chuck Eaton, director of field service for the local chapter, noted how the past contrasted with the present.

In front of the building, the wording on a statue of a boy standing sentinel also marks the passage of time. “The past is our heritage,” it reads. “The present our opportunity. The future our hope.”

HIV/AIDS PSA

This public service announcement (PSA) was made by 26 year old filmmaker, activist and blogger Eric Leven.

Here's an interview that was recently done with Eric...
http://bloggernista.com/2007/10/09/who-says-young-gay-men-are-shallow/