Mormon Church Donates to LGBT Charity

This is encouraging. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints donated $2,500 to an LGBT homeless and youth center.

This represents a first step in building relations between the Mormon church and the gay community: the Church supported Proposition 8, the 2008 legislation to ban gay marriage in California. It was ruled unconstitutional.

The Utah Pride Centre provides food and counseling to around 40 homeless LGBTI people a week, as well as sex-safe kits and mental health support services.

‘We are grateful for their generosity and the emerging relationship’ Kent Frogley said, the chairman of the centre’s board of directors.

You can read the rest here. I hope this kind of thing continues.

George Takei Denies He’s Racist

You know, sometimes, for some reason, some people get a voice and I have no idea why they get that voice. I’m not saying I don’t like George Tekei. I just don’t “get” why whatever he says is so important. He’s not someone who has much influence over my life. 

This week Takei  made a highly questionable comment about Justice Thomas that made me look twice.

And now Takei is claiming he’s not a racist. 

The gay Star Trek actor and activist angered some when he delivered a stern rebuke to the African American judge after he voted against same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court ruling.

Thomas denied that same-sex couples who were unable to get married were ‘deprived of their liberty and dignity’.

‘Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved,’ he said in his dissent. ‘Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them…The government cannot bestow dignity and it cannot take it away.’

Takei, who was a survivor of a Japanese internment camp, reacted angrily to Thomas’ dissent.

‘He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry,’ Takei told KSAZ-TV.

The rest is here. This kind of thing makes me so uncomfortable I hate to even comment with one more word. I just hope I never say anything as stupid as what Takei said.