Too Soft for Dobson?

UPDATE: “Focus on the Family” has admitted this week (May 24, 2011) that it is losing the battle on same-sex marriage, particularly among young people. No wonder Dobson said that F.O.T.F. is too soft for him!

As someone who grew up being burnt by adults who espoused Dobson’s fiery rhetoric, I am not at all surprised to hear that evidently he believes his organization “Focus on the Family” had gone too soft for him. I wonder how many real families out there have been hurt more than helped by Dobson through the decades. I personally know of plenty.

“Dobson’s departure from Focus only to start a similar ministry has some outside observers speculating that Dobson was forced out of Focus–and that a bitter Dobson decided to create a competing organization. Dobson, they say, may also feel that Focus’ kinder and gentler approach under CEO and president Jim Daly is not doing the trick, motivating Dobson to start a family nonprofit where fiery rhetoric is the norm.“

Well, whatever the real back story (my gut instinct has never trusted in the impetuous impulsion of Dobson). Here is a little more information on Dobson’s new venture, and then further information on the growing disharmony in the F.O.T.F. camp. From all I have seen, Dobson has ever really been a bridge builder.

religion-and-politics
gay-life
politics

Gay or Straight: One Leg at a Time

One of my favorite sources for humor highlighted this topic:

“Same-sex couples are virtually identical to opposite-sex couples when it comes to age, income, and child rearing according to census data released in the United States. … Just goes to show you, gay people really aren’t all that different from straight people. Except for our extrasensory abilities and ability to wither your crops by blinking, that is.”

So, if this is the case, then why do so many straight people still spend their energies spreading the angst and animosity? Seriously. Gay or straight, we all put our pants on one leg at a time.

upside-down

Wisdom from the Lezzies

Or something like that...

Some women can’t say the word lesbian… even when their mouth is full of one.

Kate Clinton

I became a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful, strong, and compassionate.
Rita Mae Brown

Everyone is their own kind of lesbian. To think there’s a certain way to dress or present yourself in the world is just one more stereotype we have to fit into.
Portia de Rossi
 
I am a writer who happens to love women. I am not a lesbian who happens to write.
Jeanette Winterson

One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she’s probably a lesbian.
Shirley Chisholm

Gay and lesbian people fall in love. We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens.
California Sen. Sheila Kuehl


lesbian-life
lesbians

 

Breaking the Code

In my 4 decades on this plant I have learned many things. One of the things I have learned is that when someone signs a letter with some variation of “Regards” what they are really trying to convey before they end their letter is: “f*ck off and f*ck you.”

Sad, but true… at least the majority of the time. Why do people hide behind benign words to thinly veil their malignant intents? Mostly because they know that the raft of sh*t their true words would reap them is not a hassle they want to deal with (or are brave enough to deal with).

What is worse than that is when people use their kind or sweet words to get what they want out of people — and then when either they do not get that they wanted — or are just “done”... you can be sure those sweet words take a hairpin curve and turn sour!

I didn’t understand it when I was a kid and heard the lessons about the tongue being the smallest member of the body but being capable of the greatest damage. I do now.

Whoever first said “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” was one of two things: deaf, or as yet unscathed by the double-edged sword of another’s words. Either way the physical wounds of sticks and stones heal long before the emotional wounds of misused words.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where people accepted self-responsibility and personal accountability for what the words that they put out there do to other people.

HA! I suppose I may as well be wishing for world peace, or a clean energy source apart from the fossil fuels that contaminated our Oceans in the Gulf during the summer of 2010.