The City of Grand Junction’s official proclamation endorsing Gay Pride Week in town
In a landmark action towards welcoming diversity in our community, at its Wednesday, May 4, 2016 meeting, the Grand Junction City Council will officially declare May 2nd through May 8th, 2016 “Grand Junction Pride Fest Week.”
Crucifixes in a slide from Shelly Donahue’s “WAIT” program at Delta High School
The Delta County School Board is violating state and federal laws in order to keep students from getting medically-accurate sex education information, and it seems to be by design.
Last October, the school district hired controversial abstinence-only-before-marriage pontificator Shelly Donahue as a sex education speaker for students. According to students, this was the only “sex education” the Delta County School District provided them, and the school board and district administration apparently consider this an adequate sex education.
Far from it.
For those who aren’t familiar with Shelly Donahue, she is an evangelistic Christian abstinence-only speaker who rakes in government grant funds by giving “WAIT” (“Why Am I Tempted”) training in public schools. Donahue’s website says
“She is passionately committed to Jesus Christ as the ultimate answer to the teen sexual activity problem in America. As a motivational speaker and a leading sex education expert, she is making a significant impact for the Kingdom of God!”
The leading “T” in Donahue’s business logo is a flaming crucifix; the logo and cross appeared in every slide in her presentations at Delta schools
In her talks, Donahue dishes out vast amounts of medically inaccurate information to kids and uses broad, simplistic analogies that convey stereotypical images of what boys’ and girls’ personalities are like. She includes liberal doses of religiously-based, guilt-and-shame to frighten students out of having sex before marriage.
Shelly Donahue, an abstinence-only teacher from Elevate Youth, a religious ministry based in Plano, Texas, who was hired to give trainings to Delta County School District Students last October. The sole funder of the program was a religious ministry.
News about the pending distribution of atheist and Satanic literature in Delta County schools April 1 is encouraging more students, parents and even teachers to come forward with information about what they say is a persistent pattern of state/church violations, religiously-based discrimination and even outright bigotry, harassment and demeaning of atheist and non-believing students occurring within the Delta County School system.
Parents from Delta County contacted Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers (WCAF) Tuesday morning (3/22/16) to alert the group to what they feel is pervasive Christian proselytizing occurring in Delta County Schools. They say they and their child have suffered to a great extent from the school district’s persistent embrace of religious promotion.
By definition, religion consists of sets of beliefs based on myths, fantasy and superstition.
If we accept one person’s religious beliefs as valid, we must accept them all, no matter how crazy they may be.
But if we act on this principle and start honoring all these various beliefs (and even the more mainstream ones) in workaday life, mayhem will result.
To see how this bears out, just take the principle to its logical extensions:
A woman goes to medical school and becomes a heart surgeon, then decides to become a Jehovah’s Witness who believes blood transfusions violate her religion. Honoring her religious belief at work would sacrifice patients’ quality of care, and could cost lives.
A devoutly religion 911 operator believes everything happens according to God’s will. Your house catches fire and you call 911. The religious operator answers, is your neighbor and recognizes you and your address. She knows you occasionally use alcohol, and based on the comings and goings at your house, has conclude that you regularly have sex on occasion even though you aren’t married. These activities violate her religion, and she honestly believes the fire at your house is God’s punishment for your sins. She does not alert the fire department because she dare not interfere with God’s will.
Your house is toast.
You get the idea.
We’ve already seen how the Kentucky County, Clerk Kim Davis’, religious belief against equal marriage have caused her to deny citizens’ their civil rights.
Just because a crowd of people mass in support Kim Davis by gathering in front of the jail she is being held in, and prominent Republican politicians make a show out of of visiting her in jail doesn’t mean she is right.
She is wrong. People who believe she is right need a thorough lesson in the purpose and value of a secular government and separation of church and state.
In the U.S., Ms. Davis is welcome to follow her faith any way she likes in her personal life, but as an elected public official, she is required to law carry out all of the duties her job requires in full accordance with the law or step down.
The CD’s Drag, Grand Junction’s first professional drag queen troupe
While Caitlyn Jenner has been grabbing all the headlines, it’s been almost overlooked that Grand Junction has been experiencing some gender-bending of its own.
Grand Junction now has its first professional drag queen troupe, The CD’s Drag and Jewell Case, LLC. The troupe is another indication of a slow but steady culture shift going on in this formerly conservative area of Colorado, and for that reason alone it’s surely something significant enough to talk about.
The troupe currently has five members, although usually only two or three perform at any given time. The group’s founders and lead performers are Coco Jem Holiday and Donatella Mysecrets De’Ore, and the supporting members are Livvi Dior, Onyx Reign and Delilah Delight. With a total of five entertainers now in their “Jewell Case,” the CDs have enough so they can have coverage in the event that some can’t make it to a gig.
ONE BIG PARTY — Grand Junction’s 3rd Annual Gay Pride Parade, Sunday, May 17, 2015
Grand Junction’s Third Annual Colorado West Pride Parade was more impressive than ever this year, with more sponsors and floats than in previous years, and a bigger crowd of spectators on Main Street. The weather was perfect for the event, with a temperature in the 70s, intermittent cloud cover, just a faint breeze and no rain.
Paul Liebe’s family-unfriendly banner outside his business, NiteLife Billiards on North Ave.
Update 2/3/2022: Paul Liebe reportedly died on January 1, 2022 at the age of 68 from Covid-19.
Paul Liebe is the owner of NiteLife Billiards at 2882 North Ave. in Grand Junction. “Liebe” means “love” in German, but unfortunately Mr. Liebe does not project a loving front to many area citizens. His business’ slogan is “We Deliver Family Fun,” but Mr. Liebe is far from family-friendly. R-rated is more like it, at a minimum.
Liebe, a gun proponent who bills himself as a “public figure” on his Facebook page, recently made headlines for selling “open carry” T-shirts printed with a realistic-looking handgun in a holster. The shirts come with a dire warning letting people know that actually wearing the shirt can lead to death if the wearer encounters police and they mistakenly think you are wearing a real gun. In short, don’t put these shirts on your kids — they aren’t family-friendly, or friendly in any way at all.
Liebe’s personal attitudes are far from family-friendly, too, and so is his language. On February 13 he posted on his publicly-accessible Facebook page: “If you don’t like what I post, get the FUCK OFF MY PAGES,” and “…I don’t give a shit if your FEELINGS get hurt.”
Yikes.
Ray Scott may be running out of gas after several terms in the state legislature, after not really getting anywhere anyway in trying to pass bills since January, 2011
Things aren’t going very well for poor Ray Scott, the incumbent Republican candidate for Colorado Senate District 7. The senate seat he is after will soon be vacated by longtime Mesa County GOP favorite son, Steve King, who currently is facing multiple misdemeanor and felony charges for theft and failing to report income as required by legislators. King’s fate may not be directly tied to Ray Scott in any way, but it certainly doesn’t help the beleaguered local GOP, which has put forth a truly embarrassing long string of inept and/or discredited candidates for office.
Ray Scott faced off with Democrat Claudette Konola in the recent Club 20 candidate debates, where he took a real hit.
Claudette opened the debate by linking Scott and his party with some of those truly bad candidates, including Steve King and former congressman Scott McInnis, who got his buddies in Congress to name a federal wilderness area named after himself in violation of congress’ House Rules, and who stepped down in disgrace from the 2010 race for governor amid allegations of massive plagiarism.
Scott opened at the debate by saying he probably wouldn’t even have gotten up that morning if it hadn’t have been for the debate. Not exactly the level of enthusiasm an incumbent legislator should project with an election just weeks away.
Parade participants ready a float in the 2014 Grand Junction Gay Pride Parade May 18
The most overlooked and historic story in Grand Junction this week is the area’s burgeoning gay scene and the growing prominence of the area’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population.
This year Gay Pride week brought an extended celebration of gender diversity to this formerly staid town, where previously people preferred to quietly sweep such culture under the rug.
Not any more.
Saturday, May 17 brought a gender-bending drag queen show to the Mesa Theater on Main Street, complete with a laser light show, throbbing techno music, Cirque-de-Soleil-style dancers atop lit towers and rambunctious performances by hilarious drag entertainers from Denver, Salt Lake and Provo.
Lest you think organizers had to go out of town to find such entertainers, that wasn’t the case. The show featured a performance by a home-grown, local drag troupe, The CDS Drag, with performers Jem Holiday, Donatella Mysecrets and Stella Rae.
Sunday, May 18 brought the Second Annual Gay Pride Parade and street festival. Heidi Hess, the western slope grassroots organizer for One Colorado, which works to secure and protect equality and opportunity for LGBT people and their families, reports that the size of the parade nearly tripled this year.
Photo by Bruce Weber
The spring fashion ad campaign of luxury department store Barneys New York features seventeen transgendered models, most of whom have never modeled before. The campaign, titled “Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters,” was shot in New York by renowned photographer Bruce Weber. The ads are an effort to raise awareness of a largely misunderstood community that has seen little progress towards acceptance over the last few decades. The photos feature the models posing with members of their support networks — friends, relatives and even pets — accompanied by a short summary of each model’s personal story. Barneys hopes that by giving the models and their unique personal stories national exposure, they will help increase social acceptance of transgendered individuals. Barneys partnered with the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the LGBT Community Center to create the campaign, and the retailer will donate 10 percent of all the sales it makes on February 11, at their stores or online, to the two organizations, with the total proceeds being divided equally between them.
Kyrsten Sinema
Former Arizona state senator Kyrsten Sinema made history November 6 when she became the first openly atheist female ever to be elected to Congress. Sinema, 36, replaces Rep. Pete Stark of California as the only other openly atheist person ever to have served in Congress. Stark, who will turn 80 this year, represented a district near San Jose, California. While holding office in 2007, he went public in about his lack of belief in God. In spite of this admission, he won re-election twice, making huge in-roads for non-believers’ representation in Congress. Stark’s coming out about his lack of belief in God helped paved the way for Sinema’s election. Sinema will represent Arizona’s 9th Congressional district, which includes parts of Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler, Tempe and Paradise Valley. Sinema, a former Mormon, is also openly bisexual. While Stark was elected to office prior to admitting he was an atheist, Sinema is the first candidate ever in U.S. history to run openly as a non-theist and get elected.
Front page of RJR’s “Project Scum” document
This post is part of our ongoing series exploring the millions of previously-secret tobacco industry documents now available on the Internet. – Ed.
“Project SCUM” was R.J. Reynolds’ plan to increase sales of Camel cigarettes in the San Francisco area by marketing them to gay people in the Castro district, “rebellious, Generation X” -ers, people of “international influence” and “street people,” by introducing Camel cigarettes into less-traditional retail outlets like “head shops.” SCUM was an acronym that stood for “Sub-Culture Urban Marketing.” RJR’s rationale for the project was a higher incidence of smoking and drug use in these subcultures. There are several versions of the “Project SCUM” document, ranging in dates from 1995-97. Each offers revealing marginalia (handwritten markings on the page). For example, in one document, handwritten in next to a bulleted list of consumer subcultures are the words “Gay/Castro” and “Tenderloin,” referring to gay areas of San Francisco. Next to a list that discusses the rationale for the program, a line says “higher incidents of smoking in subcultures” and has the phrase “and drugs” handwritten in. On yet another copy, the phrase “and drugs” is crossed out, revealing RJR’s ambivalence about their exploitation of the drug culture. A later copy of the document’s title page has the word “SCUM” crossed out and the word “Sourdough” handwritten in, as though RJR realized too late the derogatory name they had slapped on their customers. See a copy of RJR’s Project Scum document here.
Rep. Don Coram (R-Montrose)
The lone Republican legislator responsible for killing Colorado’s civil unions bill voted against it even though his son and only child is gay. Rep. Don Coram of Montrose cast the deciding vote on a 5-4 party line vote May 14. Rep. Coram is the father of Dee Coram, who runs the Coffee Trader, a popular coffee bar in downtown Montrose. Dee Coram has served on a local economic development board, has been active in helping revitalize downtown Montrose and even got an award from the Governor for his work. Dee Coram says his father not only let him down, but also let down the entire gay community. Commenting on his father’s vote, Coram said, “I was told by my grandfather, there’s always a time to lead and there’s always a time to follow. He was given a time to lead, and he didn’t do it. He could have and should have been the deciding vote.” Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper called the special session to address the civil unions bill after Republican maneuvering blocked it from coming to a vote in the entire House, where it had enough votes to pass. The bill had already received the approval of three separate House committees during the regular session and had enough bipartisan support to pass in the full House. To kill it, House Speaker Frank McNulty (R-Highlands Ranch) assigned the bill to yet a fourth committee — the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee — where he knew it would not pass.
Sign from NOM anti-gay rally in Indianapolis (Photo: NOM Exposed)
Previously-secret internal documents released during the course of a lawsuit in Maine reveal the National Organization for Marriage had a PR strategy to turn blacks against gays in an effort to stir up opposition to gay marriage. NOM, a right-wing, anti-gay group founded in 2007 to fight efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, works to defeat marriage equality laws in states where they are advancing.
A confidential 2008-2009 report to NOM’s Board of Directors states,
“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…Find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally…”
Lifting directly from the tobacco industry strategy, one NOM’s document states (on page 23) “Identify and nurture a worldwide community of highly credentialed intellectuals and professional scholars, physicians, psychiatrists, social workers and writers to credential our concerns and to interrupt the silencing that takes place…around gay marriage and related family matters… Expert Witness Project 2010 Budget: $50,000.”
NOM released a statement defending its strategies of pitting minorities against each other, saying “Gay marriage is not a civil right, and we will continue to point this out in written materials such as those released in Maine. We proudly bring together people of different races, creeds and colors to fight for our most fundamental institution: marriage.”
Main Source: Human Rights Campaign, March 26, 2012
