CA Church Won’t Comply With IRS Probe“A liberal Pasadena church on Thursday declared that it will refuse to comply with an IRS investigation into its tax-exemption status launched after a guest speaker was critical of President Bush in a sermon. Now, as the November election approaches, some churches worry that they may be the next targets of the IRS. This summer, the agency issued a statement warning nonprofits, including churches, that it was stepping up its efforts to crack down on illegal electioneering.
The Interfaith Alliance announced Thursday that it has started distributing 20,000 pamphlets to churches, synagogues and mosques offering advice on how to comply with federal law….The goal, Gaddy said, is to avoid the kind of partisan politicking recently aired in a televised campaign ad for Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tennessee), who is running for a Senate seat. The commercial is set inside a church.” (LA Times, “All Saints Episcopal Church Won't Comply With IRS Probe,” 09-22-06)
Friday, September 29, 2006
Watching Out For Human Rightsby Libby Post
We’re kept out of the military. We’re fired from our jobs. We’re targets of hate crimes. We’re denied the ability to legally recognize our relationships. And this is just in the United States .
Homophobia has taken on a particularly international flavor of late as lesbian and gay organizations are denied entrance to United Nations gatherings.
The latest door was closed in Zimbabwe when that country’s president, the rabidly homophobic Robert Mugabe, refused to let the Gay and Lesbian Association of Zimbabwe attend a 3-day U.N.-sponsored human rights meeting between the national government and human rights groups. The UN representative in Zimbabwe refused to comment.
In neighboring South Africa, the government banned the country’s leading HIV/AIDS organization from attending the UN’s Special Session on AIDS. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which was nominated for a 2004 Nobel Prize, has been a constant thorn in the South African government’s side on how it has dealt with the country’s AIDS crisis. The UN’s special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa , Stephen Lewis, thankfully did comment saying TAC’s exclusion was “absolutely outrageous” and credited TAC with being the “single most credible non-governmental AIDS organization in the world.”
One can only wonder if these African countries are taking their cue from the United States. We do, after all, like to consider ourselves trend setters—even if it is setting the wrong trend.
Earlier in the year, the United States joined with some of the most repressive governments—China, Iran, Cameroon and Columbia--to deny two international LGBT groups non-governmental organization (NGO) observer status at the United Nations.
Yes, you heard that right— Iran. We may demonize that country publicly but when it comes to privacy issues, George is a political whore. He’ll become political bedfellows with anyone—an individual, an organization, or in this case a country he considers our sworn enemy—to further his radical Christian right crusade against the LGBT community.
Who would have been hurt if the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and the Danish Association of Gays and Lesbians (LBL) were allowed to speak for the LGBT community at the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) which advises the international organization on economic and social issues?
After all, there are 634 NGOs affiliated with ECOSOC. We’re talking about groups like the Humane Society, American Jewish Congress and Greenpeace as well as such groups as Feminists for Life of America and the National Right to Life Education Trust Fund. A lesbian and gay NGO voice would give some balance to the right-wing hyperbole.
But, that’s not happening. While all other NGOs have been given fair hearings, ILGA and LBL’s request for one was summarily dismissed without any discussion. The dismissal, which was done by the ECOSOC NGO committee, happened after ILGA and LBL went through the rather exhaustive process that got them to the point where they could even ask for a hearing. Behind the scenes maneuvering by Egypt and the Organization of Islamic Conferences made the exclusion of the two gay groups a slam dunk.
Rosanna Flamer Caldera, Co-secretary General of ILGA, which represents a worldwide network of over 400 LGBT organizations, considers the exclusion “a clear violation of due process and an attempt to discriminate against LGBT NGOs on procedural grounds.”
Barney Frank, the openly gay Congressman from Massachusetts, took U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to task for her role in the groups’ rejection. In a letter addressed to Rice, he wrote “I was deeply troubled to learn that the U.S. Government, presumably at your direction, sided with some of the most undemocratic, anti-human rights regimes in the world in voting against consultative status for two international organizations, solely on the grounds that they represent gay and lesbian people. I had hopes for better from you.”
In response to Frank and outcry from various LGBT and human rights groups, the State Department attempted to defend its action by saying that concern over potential support for pedophilias was behind the U.S. vote to exclude the gay rights groups.
There’s nothing like falling back on one of the oldest, homophobic stereotypes to defend an indefensible position. By doing so our country sets a trend that has at its roots discrimination, degradation and death—not the democracy and dignity it says it is trying to bring to the rest of the world. Once again, our government has shown its true disgust for and distrust of LGBT people. Like Barney Frank said—I had hopes for better from you.
©365Gay.com 2006
We’re kept out of the military. We’re fired from our jobs. We’re targets of hate crimes. We’re denied the ability to legally recognize our relationships. And this is just in the United States .
Homophobia has taken on a particularly international flavor of late as lesbian and gay organizations are denied entrance to United Nations gatherings.
The latest door was closed in Zimbabwe when that country’s president, the rabidly homophobic Robert Mugabe, refused to let the Gay and Lesbian Association of Zimbabwe attend a 3-day U.N.-sponsored human rights meeting between the national government and human rights groups. The UN representative in Zimbabwe refused to comment.
In neighboring South Africa, the government banned the country’s leading HIV/AIDS organization from attending the UN’s Special Session on AIDS. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which was nominated for a 2004 Nobel Prize, has been a constant thorn in the South African government’s side on how it has dealt with the country’s AIDS crisis. The UN’s special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa , Stephen Lewis, thankfully did comment saying TAC’s exclusion was “absolutely outrageous” and credited TAC with being the “single most credible non-governmental AIDS organization in the world.”
One can only wonder if these African countries are taking their cue from the United States. We do, after all, like to consider ourselves trend setters—even if it is setting the wrong trend.
Earlier in the year, the United States joined with some of the most repressive governments—China, Iran, Cameroon and Columbia--to deny two international LGBT groups non-governmental organization (NGO) observer status at the United Nations.
Yes, you heard that right— Iran. We may demonize that country publicly but when it comes to privacy issues, George is a political whore. He’ll become political bedfellows with anyone—an individual, an organization, or in this case a country he considers our sworn enemy—to further his radical Christian right crusade against the LGBT community.
Who would have been hurt if the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and the Danish Association of Gays and Lesbians (LBL) were allowed to speak for the LGBT community at the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) which advises the international organization on economic and social issues?
After all, there are 634 NGOs affiliated with ECOSOC. We’re talking about groups like the Humane Society, American Jewish Congress and Greenpeace as well as such groups as Feminists for Life of America and the National Right to Life Education Trust Fund. A lesbian and gay NGO voice would give some balance to the right-wing hyperbole.
But, that’s not happening. While all other NGOs have been given fair hearings, ILGA and LBL’s request for one was summarily dismissed without any discussion. The dismissal, which was done by the ECOSOC NGO committee, happened after ILGA and LBL went through the rather exhaustive process that got them to the point where they could even ask for a hearing. Behind the scenes maneuvering by Egypt and the Organization of Islamic Conferences made the exclusion of the two gay groups a slam dunk.
Rosanna Flamer Caldera, Co-secretary General of ILGA, which represents a worldwide network of over 400 LGBT organizations, considers the exclusion “a clear violation of due process and an attempt to discriminate against LGBT NGOs on procedural grounds.”
Barney Frank, the openly gay Congressman from Massachusetts, took U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to task for her role in the groups’ rejection. In a letter addressed to Rice, he wrote “I was deeply troubled to learn that the U.S. Government, presumably at your direction, sided with some of the most undemocratic, anti-human rights regimes in the world in voting against consultative status for two international organizations, solely on the grounds that they represent gay and lesbian people. I had hopes for better from you.”
In response to Frank and outcry from various LGBT and human rights groups, the State Department attempted to defend its action by saying that concern over potential support for pedophilias was behind the U.S. vote to exclude the gay rights groups.
There’s nothing like falling back on one of the oldest, homophobic stereotypes to defend an indefensible position. By doing so our country sets a trend that has at its roots discrimination, degradation and death—not the democracy and dignity it says it is trying to bring to the rest of the world. Once again, our government has shown its true disgust for and distrust of LGBT people. Like Barney Frank said—I had hopes for better from you.
©365Gay.com 2006
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