Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category
The state of Alabama remains abuzz over just what is going on with these Troy King resignation rumors. The Republican Attorney General, who succeeded William Pryor after his controversial appointment to the federal bench, has been seen by many as a potential gubernatorial candidate when current Governor Bob Riley leaves office.
There are some who believe the initial source of the rumors are those from Riley himself. It has long been rumored that Riley’s reason for running for Congress, and later Governor, was to pave a path for his son Rob Riley, a former SGA president and leader of the Machine at the University of Alabama. Rob Riley was on the infamous conference call with GOP operative Bill Canary and Dana Jill Simpson, when it was inferred that Canary would use Karl Rove and the Justice Department to investigate Riley’s former opponent, Governor Don Siegelman.
WSFA, Montgomery’s WSFA affiliate told some bloggers who inquired about the station running a story on King, said that King was going through a divorce, and that they wouldn’t be running a story of such a private matter.
Common Sense, at the Alabama blog, Left In Alabama, reports:
Sources at the Montgomery Advertiser say that they have been sitting on the story for a couple of weeks. They’re working the story fast and furiously but won’t run until they get official confirmation due to possible exposure to a lawsuit from King. Their sources tell them that Troy King was caught in a compromising situation with a male aide at King’s home by his wife. The Montgomery Advertiser is trying to determine who King would submit his resignation to – is it Gov. Bob Riley? A press release from King’s office stated that he was supposed to be in Mobile yesterday (Wednesday). The Mobile-Register is working the story as well.”
The rumor mill in Montgomery is swirling of news of a potential resignation by Republican Attorney General Troy King, amid rumors that he was caught by his wife having sex with a male aide and subsequently banished from his home by his wife. King, a potential GOP frontrunner for Governor in 2010, succeeded Bill Pryor, one of George W. Bush’s most controversial judicial nominees. In addition, King was also an early endorser of John McCain.
The Locust Fork Journal:
A spokesperson for Alabama Governor Bob Riley denied that Attorney General Troy King is preparing to resign in the wake of a massive rumor campaign that has yet to be fully confirmed. The word is, according to multiple sources in Montgomery and elsewhere, that King was recently caught by his wife in a gay affair with a male aide and banished from his home.
According to Tara Hutchison in the executive office of the governor they have heard of no plans in the works for King’s resignation. She said she had not heard that he had been kicked out of his home because of a gay affair.
Governor Bob Riley’s press office refused to return multiple phone calls from this independent press outlet even though some sources accuse Riley of perpetrating the leak. The attorney general’s press office also declined to return phone calls seeking comment.
The Locust Fork News and Journal heard about this a couple of weeks ago from a Montgomery lawyer, and have had numerous contacts with people trying to confirm the truth of the rumor.
Left In Alabama:
I just heard from a very reliable source that Troy Boy is resigning as Attorney General. No report of King’s official reason, but the unofficial reason almost certainly involves the rumors swirling around Montgomery that he was recently caught in embarassing misconduct. The resignation may be enough to keep King’s personal life out of the papers, but I don’t look for him to run for governor in 2010.
I’m almost sorry to see him go — Troy was like a caricature of the Republican party. Never met a death sentence he didn’t like, against sexual gratification, publicity hound, etc. … life as an Alabama blogger will be harder without Troy King.
Last month, the Sydney Morning Herald announced that Australian Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham had come out of the closet, but Mitcham, in a new interview with Australia’s gay newspaper SX, says he’s been out since he’s 14. Mitcham, who will be Australia’s first openly gay Olympian when he competes in Beijing, is now 20.
Fishbowl America Round-Up for July 8th:
- “Lost” To Air on Sci-Fi Channel – Sci-Fi has jumped in to help us all with the hiatus blues and announced it will begin airing 4 hour blocks of LOST every Monday at 7:00pm starting September 15. The episodes will run in order up to the season 4 finale.
- Carey Takes Helm of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force – Rea Carey was happily serving as interim executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force until a few months ago. The organization had embarked on an extensive search to find a replacement for Matt Foreman, who resigned in January.
- What the Pregnant Man Didn’t Deliver – By the time Thomas Beatie, “the Pregnant Man,” strode across Oprah Winfrey’s stage on April 3, his story had already become a worldwide phenomenon. Beatie — a transgendered man who was born a woman and became pregnant through artificial insemination — h
- Alabama Senate: Sessions 58, Figures 34; Obama down by 15 – Rasmussen Reports takes another snapshot of the Alabama Senate race, this time finding Sen. Jeff Sessions leading his Democratic challenger Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, 58 percent to 34 percent.
- Retired Military Leaders Come Out Against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell / Queerty – Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell took a severe blow today. A study released today asserts that openly gay soldiers do not threaten unit cohesion.
- Wockner: The Day ACT UP Put a Condom On Jesse Helms’ House – AIDS activists inflated a giant “reservoir-tipped condom” over U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms’ house Sept. 5 [1991] in Arlington, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.
- A Clintonian at Fox – Howard Wolfson, who was a top strategist for the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, is going where some Democrats were unwilling to go during the early days of the election season: the Fox News Channel.
- Charred Bodies Found on Tijuana Street – Police on Monday found six charred bodies on a Tijuana street following a bloody weekend that left 14 people dead.
Discovery will begin airing a four-part series, “The People’s Republic of Capitalism,” beginning July 9, profiling the role China’s growing economy will affect the global economy.
Nominated for Best Documentary at the 2006 GLAAD Media Awards, WE ARE DAD is the story of a gay couple who are pediatric AIDS nurses that become foster parents to infants who are HIV positive, and decide to challenge the State of Florida’s law banning adoption by gay people.
The film follows the lives of a most unusual family: Two white HIV negative gay men and their family of five kids. Four of them have AIDS, three are black, two come from a backwater cult in Oregon, and one of the children has been in the middle of one of the most hotly debated issues in this country: gay adoption. We follow these delightful men through the highs and lows of their 18 year struggle to raise this amazing family.
Fishbowl America Round-Up for July 5th through July 6th:
- Tablet ignites debate on messiah and resurrection – A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.
- The United States of Fat – CalorieLab has out their annual “fattest States” and it’s no surprise. Folks just keep getting fatter, so much so that they had to change the categories slightly so it wasn’t a wash of red, fat, states.
- Israel weighs Jerusalem separation – Israel should cut off outlying Arab neighborhoods from Jerusalem, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon demanded Thursday, a day after a Palestinian construction worker from one of those districts went on a deadly rampage in the city center.
- Lawn-chair balloonist drifts from Oregon to Idaho – A man flying across Oregon in a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons has reached his destination in Idaho.
Homophobia irks me. Being gay and being born and raised in the Deep South, there’s a deep divide over how people think, based on what they’re taught, and what they’ve actually experienced. I can assure you my extended family, who despite my pleasure, occasionally use the N-word, and repulse from news about “the gays,” continue to do so because they don’t have friends or acquaintances who are African-American, or who are LGBT, or Jewish… or Muslim… pretty much anything not really shouting out its existence in Dixie… and don’t fundamentally understand why their views are so offensive to me.
Now, I can’t blame my 88 year-old grandmother for her archaic use of language. She’s of a different generation that I am, and all I can do is gently educate her about how the world actually works. There are, in fact, gay people in America, and they tie their shoes just like you do. And that you ABSOLUTELY do not use slurs or slanders, ever. I only this week managed to get her to remove her lawn jockey from her front yard, and that thing has made me queasy since I realized what it stood for. When I was 12.
My uncle, who I wouldn’t give two cents for when it came to voting for a Democrat in the first place, and I’m sure has a USB cord attached from Fox News to his brain, has twice tried to educate me on Barack Obama. That Obama is a Muslim, that he’s a closet terrorist. He’s constantly sending out emails about Barack Obama and his craziness. I’ve just started forwarding him back snopes.com articles debunking urban legends, or direct material from all kinds of sources. When a cousin asked who I was voting for, I knew where the conversation was leading. I said, “Obama,” and looked upon his astonishment. “Why?” he asked in a condescending way. “Because I believe in the Constitution. Because I believe we need a direct change from the policy of Dubya. Because I don’t promote the politics of hate and exclusion.”
I walked out of the room, not even wanting to engage the idiot in any type of educational exercise, only because I know he is an avid hunter, was wearing camo at the time, and was probably locked and loaded from the oversized gas-guzzling SUV he drove in on… (on Father’s Day. Not gay-chic.) Sure enough, within 10 seconds, I hear n-word this, muslim that.
My point is… desensitize people. I prolly should have had a sit down, and maybe that will come one day. But still, it irks me.