E.J.

Found and interesting interview with Card from about 8 years ago...... My favorite author, my worst interview I worshiped militaristic Mormon science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card -- until we met. By Donna Minkowitz, Solon.com It was the most unpleasant interview I've ever done. And one of the most instructive. Science-fiction writer Orson Scott Card wrote one of my favorite books of all time. So when he came out with a sequel, I was delirious with the desire to interview him. "Ender's Game," which won the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1985, is the best book I have ever read about violence. Who would have thought it would result in an interview in which I wanted to throttle the author? "Ender's Game" is also about loving your enemies, a goal so important to me that I wrote a book about it myself. How could I guess that interviewing the author would make me question that entire project? A strangely empathic novel about 6-year-olds forced to be military commanders, "Ender's Game" brought together a fan base that might reasonably be expected to be at one another's throats (in some cases literally): progressives, children and soldiers. It was cherished by middle-schoolers and adults harrowed by child abuse; it was passed around by Gulf War bomb-droppers and used as a text by the Marines. And as for me, well, I'm a Jewish lesbian radical who wrote a book about what I have in common with the Christian right, so Card's paradoxes are right up my alley. Card's hero, Ender, is an abused little boy being trained to fight alien enemies called the Buggers. His teachers have chosen him because he's compassionate enough to love (and hence to understand) his enemies, but ruthless and scared enough to wipe them off the face of the earth. The sequel, "Ender's Shadow," is about another child who thinks he has to choose between love and survival. Its hero, Bean, is a starving toddler in a hellish future city where children fight each other for food. Bean eventually makes it into the Battle School where Ender's being taught to exterminate the Buggers. I knew that Card, like his readership, was an outrageous hodgepodge. He writes strange, passionate books full of yearning but no sex and ardent little boys frisking around in zero gravity pretending to shoot each other. A devout Mormon, he is squeaky clean but adorably perverse and the author of a hit Mormon musical called "Barefoot to Zion," which celebrates the sesquicentennial of the entry of the Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley. (I wanted to get my hands on a copy of that musical, badly.) But I'd somehow failed to ascertain that Card was a disgustingly outspoken homophobe. And given his book's brilliant, humane examination of the ethics of violence, I couldn't have predicted he'd be someone who thought it was dandy to bomb and massacre civilians. Read more HERE

Card's full essay called "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality", written almost 20 years ago, can be found here: http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html He is not confused (though he may be at least a little bent). He is a VERY active member of the Mormon church and his writing reflects that.

I have not read the STORY yet, so don't know what it is about.

AT&T and Other I.S.P.?s May Be Getting Ready to Filter By Brad Stone LINK For the last 15 years, Internet service providers have acted - to use an old cliche - as wide-open information super-highways, letting data flow uninterrupted and unimpeded between users and the Internet. But I.S.P.?s may be about to embrace a new metaphor: traffic cop. At a small panel discussion about digital piracy at NBC?s booth on the Consumer Electronics Show floor, representatives from NBC, Microsoft, several digital filtering companies and the telecom giant AT&T said discussed whether the time was right to start filtering for copyrighted content at the network level. Such filtering for pirated material already occurs on sites like YouTube and Microsoft?s Soapbox, and on some university networks. Network-level filtering means your Internet service provider ? Comcast, AT&T, EarthLink, or whoever you send that monthly check to ? could soon start sniffing your digital packets, looking for material that infringes on someone?s copyright. ?What we are already doing to address piracy hasn?t been working. There?s no secret there,? said James Cicconi, senior vice president, external & legal affairs for AT&T. Mr. Cicconi said that AT&T has been talking to technology companies, and members of the M.P.A.A. and R.I.A.A., for the last six months about carrying out digital fingerprinting techniques on the network level. ?We are very interested in a technology based solution and we think a network-based solution is the optimal way to approach this,? he said. ?We recognize we are not there yet but there are a lot of promising technologies. But we are having an open discussion with a number of content companies, including NBC Universal, to try to explore various technologies that are out there.? Internet civil rights organizations oppose network-level filtering, arguing that it amounts to Big Brother monitoring of free speech, and that such filtering could block the use of material that may fall under fair-use legal provisions ? uses like parody, which enrich our culture. Rick Cotton, the general counsel of NBC Universal, who has led the company?s fights against companies like YouTube for the last three years, clearly doesn?t have much tolerance for that line of thinking. ?The volume of peer-to-peer traffic online, dominated by copyrighted materials, is overwhelming. That clearly should not be an acceptable, continuing status,? he said. ?The question is how we collectively collaborate to address this.? I asked the panelists how they would respond to objections from their customers over network level filtering ? for example, the kind of angry outcry Comcast saw last year, when it was accused of clamping down on BitTorrent traffic on its network. ?Whatever we do has to pass muster with consumers and with policy standards. There is going to be a spotlight on it,? said Mr. Cicconi of AT&T. After the session, he told me that I.S.P.?s like AT&T would have to handle such network filtering delicately, and do more than just stop an upload dead in its tracks, or send a legalistic cease and desist form letter to a customer. ?We?ve got to figure out a friendly way to do it, there?s no doubt about it,? he said. UPDATE: Not all members of the panel endorsed network filtering. Microsoft has said it does not support the idea. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Chapter 11 has been posted

Chapter 8 of A Horse Named Phil is now posted. Plus a new story by Driver. (crvboy warns on his site that this new story is "not gay")

Iran Executes 21 Year Old Accused Of Gay Sex When He Was 13 by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff LINK (New York City) The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said Wednesday that a 21 year old man spared from execution only 10 days ago was hanged this morning. On November 15 Iran's Chief Justice halted the execution of Makvan Mouloodzadeh and ordered a new trial. Mouloodzadeh had been charged with having sex with another male when the accused was only 13 years old. At his original trial no witness ever accused Mouloodzadeh of rape. Instead, the prosecution witnesses all told the court that their statements during the investigation were either untruthful or coerced. Nevertheless Mouloodzadeh was found guilty and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court upheld his death sentence in August Chief Justice Ayatollah Seyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi in staying the execution described the death sentence to be in violation of Islamic teachings, the religious decrees of high-ranking Shiite clerics, and the law of the land. Shahrudi's ruling sent the case to the Special Supervision Bureau of the Iranian Justice Department, a designated group of judges who are responsible for reviewing and ordering retrials of flawed cases flagged by the Iranian Chief Justice. However, the judges decided to ratify the original court's ruling and ordered the local authorities to carry out the execution. Mouloodzadeh was executed in Kermanshah Central Prison at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning. Neither Mr. Mouloodzadeh's family or his lawyer were told about the execution until after it occurred, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission said in a statement. "This is a shameful and outrageous travesty of justice and international human rights law," said Paula Ettelbrick, IGLHRC's executive director. "How many more young Iranians have to die before the international community takes action?" Under Islamic law sodomy is a capital crime punishable by public lashings or hanging. Some international gay rights groups believe that more than 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the Ayatollahs seized power in 1979. The government in Tehran has repeatedly denied the reports. Last month it was learned that during a meeting between British and Iranian politicians a high ranking Iranian cabinet minister acknowledged for the first time that the Islamic state upholds the death penalty for homosexuality. The disclosure was in marked contrast to remarks in September by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a speech at Columbia University when he declared there were no homosexuals in Iran. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like you do in your country. We do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it," Ahmadinejad said. ?365Gay.com 2007

Driver is back posting. He is just taking some time off during the holidays.....hopefully

It's not 11:00 yet (at least not here) but..... More News Here

See Chapter 6 HERE

CHAPTER 6 is up. Last chapter

CHAPTER 5 is already posted. CRVBOY says that more chapters, to other stories, will appear "in the future".

The Point Foundation PO Box 60108 Los Angeles, CA 90060-0108 1-866-33-POINT (866-337-6468) Donate Here

Polish homosexuals flee persecution in exodus to UK Daily Mail Robert Biedron, a left wing party activist and head of the Polish Foundation Against Homophobia, said "huge numbers" of Polish gays had now fled the country following the rise to power of the current right-wing conservative government. He said: "It is incredible. The Polish gay community has just moved away because of the climate of fear and persecution. "Most of the people I know are now in England because of the current political situation. Not for economic reasons, but because of the persecution of homosexuals going on here. "It?s impossible for gays to be themselves in Poland. Around two million Poles have left the country seeking work and thousands of gays are joining them. "Many gays are approaching our foundation for help in emigrating to the UK." Poland?s Catholic, conservative right-wing government has members who are openly anti-gay and the health ministry has created a special committee responsible for "curing" gays, according to local media. Deputy health minister Marek Grafowski said the ministry was also planning to identify how many people in Poland were gay and work out a set of behavioural guides to assist parents and teachers in recognising warning signs of potential "gay" behaviour. The police have also been compiling a database on gays and the gay community in Poland which although illegal under EU law, is apparently being done as part of a police investigation into a bomb threat two years ago by a gay man. He had reportedly identified himself as a meber of the gay community angry when a gay rights march was banned in Warsaw. "The Police are not allowed to catalogue ?homosexual data? but it?s enough to look into the police investigation associated with the bomb in order to establish a list of names and addresses," said Ewa Kulesza, a former personal data protection general inspector. ?2007 Associated Newspapers Ltd

WARNING: This video shows Fred Phelps actually speaking. (expect a certain level of insanity) some one transcribed the video (in case you are afraid to watch): from blog - Pam's House Blend

Clinton, Edwards, Obama outline gay stances Documents show broad support, some reservations by Joshua Lynsen, Washington Blade Three leading Democratic presidential candidates pledge strong support of gay issues in new documents, but stop short of supporting marriage equality. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina affirm their support of civil unions in various papers outlining their positions. Edwards said in a Human Rights Campaign questionnaire that surfaced this week that committed gay couples should have ?the same rights, benefits and responsibilities? as straight couples. ?I support civil unions to guarantee gay and lesbian couples the same rights as straight couples, including inheritance rights, hospital visitation rights, equal pension and health care benefits, and all of the 1,100 other legal protections government affords married couples,? Edwards said in the questionnaire. Clinton and Obama also expressed support for civil unions in documents their campaigns provided the Blade. ?Hillary will work to ensure that all Americans in committed relationships have equal benefits ? from health insurance and life insurance, property rights and more,? says a document from her campaign titled ?Fighting for the LGBT Community.? ?Barack Obama supports civil unions that give gay couples full rights, including the right to assist their loved ones in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits currently extended to traditional married couples and the same property rights as anyone else,? says a campaign document titled ?Barack Obama?s Support for the Gay and Lesbian Community.? Edwards was the only candidate among the three to address marriage equality in his document. ?Gay marriage is an issue I feel internal conflict about and I continue to struggle with it,? he said in his questionnaire. ?However, I believe the right president could lead the country toward consensus around equal rights and benefits for all couples in committed, long-term relationships.? Edwards also noted he supports ?the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act provision that prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex relationships. In their documents, neither Clinton nor Obama addressed the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Edwards affirmed in his questionnaire support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, increased funding for the Ryan White CARE Act that combats HIV/AIDS, equal adoption rights and equal immigration rights. He also said gays should be allowed to serve openly in the armed forces. Clinton and Obama also noted their support of ENDA and the CARE Act. Both said gays should be allowed to serve openly in the armed forces. Obama additionally noted he supports equal adoption rights. HRC spokesperson Brad Luna, who provided the Edwards questionnaire to the Blade, declined to immediately release any other questionnaires. ?We are not planning on releasing our composite of all the questionnaires for about another week or so simply because we?re still getting them all in,? he said, ?and then once we get them, we?re going to do sort of a side-by-side analysis kind of thing and then release it.? ? 2007 | A Window Media LLC Publication Download the document from each candidate on gay issues: Clinton Edwards Obama

Anti-Gay Phelps Clan To Protest At Falwell Funeral by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff LINK (Topeka, Kansas) Westboro Baptist Church says it intends to state a protest at the funeral of Rev. Jerry Falwell. Falwell died died Tuesday at age 73. The funeral will be Tuesday at the Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church he founded, in Lynchburg, Virginia. On its Web site, Westboro says it will "preach" outside the funeral "of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone.'" The church is run by the Rev. Fred Phelps and its 70 members are made up mostly of Phelps' relatives. Although it professes to be Baptist it is not affiliated with any national Baptist group. In attacking Falwell the church says he "warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White (of Souflorce), and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc." The Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro operates Web sites including GodHatesFags and GodHatesAmerica and has been described as a cult. Phelps and the church first came to national attention when he organized a protest by his followers outside the 1998 funeral for Matthew Shepherd, the gay college student who was beaten to death in Wyoming. The killing, Phelps' protest, and the reaction of townsfolk led to the play "The Laramie Project." Church members routinely demonstrate at the funerals of AIDS victims and most recently at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. Lately it has pointed its criticism overseas. Last month the Swedish royal family hired a lawyer after hundreds of threatening faxes clogged the offices of various members of the royal family threatening they will "spend eternity in hell" and suggesting various members of the family, including King Carl Gustaf, are gay. Falwell for his part was no friend to the gay community. Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 Falwell declared that gays and pro choice advocates were to blame. In 2003 Falwell announced that he was putting aside everything to devote his time to passage of a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage and in the 2004 election campaign he worked with Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue. Soulforce founder Mel White at one time worked with Falwell but the two split after White came out. ?365Gay.com 2007

The original study involving brain differences in gay sheep was completed in 2002. The follow-up study, where they attempted to alter the sexuallity of sheep in the womb, was published (in part) in June of 2006. But you are right, PETA did bring this up. I don't think that fact makes the story any less "news worthy".

Soy, the perfect heathen food -- it does a body gay Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: I knew it. I knew that soy stuff was evil like black sunshine in spring! Also: Is Tom Cruise really gay? Does he eat a lot of soy? Is Steve Jobs a god? Does God like soy? Wait, didn't God invent soy? So how could it be bad for my innocent cherubic child who loves iPods and looks nothing like Tom Cruise? Is this the year I wear more orange? And so on. Oh yes, you knew it. Especially if you are from the far end of the baffled, gay-hatin', right-wing mind-set and don't read much and don't really care about pesky stuff like science or facts or health or, you know, actual thought. Yay, you! Yes, you knew there was a threat far, far more dire to your precious child right now than Nancy Pelosi's terrifying agenda or Aaron Sorkin's bewildering dialogue or pagan yoga classes or swell federal abstinence programs. Here, then, is your hot new target, writ large in what must be the absolute cutest unsung little ultra-right-wing article of all of 2006, appearing on an obscure conservative news compendium site called WorldNetDaily, among other stories like: "Should Christians be armed? The ultimate biblical exploration of self-defense." "How the U.N. will be the death of Israel and the West." "Chuck Norris' column appears here!" "U.S. infrastructure for sale to foreigners." "The good news about the looming disaster ... it's easy, inexpensive and fun to get prepared!" The author of this particular article, Jim Rutz, a guy who likes his meat organic but his facts as toxic and undercooked as a high school cheeseburger, states, with absolute certainty, that soy products will make your kid gay. And why? Because soy contains "feminizing" estrogen compounds, so when you feed soy products to your little girl, she will menstruate by age 7, and if you feed it to your little boy, his testicles might not fully develop until he enters college, and if you feed soy milk to your baby (heathen! sinner!), your tot will, according to Jimbo, receive the equivalent of five birth control pills per day (italics his), and doing so could actually kill your baby. Oh, my God, who will save the children from the gay (plant) agenda! I see you smiling, you, over there, who actually read books and eat well and, you know, think for yourself. I see you shaking your head in disbelief, perhaps thinking I am making this up. Alas, I am not. It is a real article, read (presumably) by real humans, many of whom might actually believe it, just as they believe that immigrants want to "mongrelize" the American "race" and that Christmas trees are actually Christian and that Taylor Hicks is somehow tolerable. It's funny because it's true. But wait. Do not fall into fits of ironic intellectual mirth just yet, because perhaps you should consider the ugly truth that, by logical extension, God hates vegans. Is it not obvious? After all, most vegans eat a lot of soy. Consequently, most vegans are, of course, violently gay, just like the billions of Asians who've eaten soy products for millennia and are so gay and feminine and estrogen heavy they can barely stand up. Which explains Hello Kitty. And samurai movies. And the Scion Xb. I mean, obviously. It all makes perfect sense. Because if there's one thing God loathes, it's gay people, what with them being such an abomination for daring to want to fall in love and be happy. Therefore God must really hate vegans (especially Asian vegans), because they must be gay, even though he loves everyone, which is a total contradiction and which sort of confuses God and which therefore makes him hate soy products even more even though he invented the stuff despite having long ago forgotten why. See? Clear as a bell, right, Jim? By the way, for the record, soy does indeed contain estrogen. Plant estrogen (phytoestrogen), that is, a very weak estrogen indeed, 1/1000th the strength of synthetic. Soy, in particular, contains estrogen-like compounds called isoflavones, which actually do have some very mild estrogenic effect. Does this make soy a bit controversial? Indeed it does. Are there some on the fringes of the health spectrum who are now claiming we are eating way too much of it? Indeed there are. Should you check into it for yourself? Absolutely. But does this mean that eating a nice tofu veggie burger will shrink your testicles and make your average hetero male linger, swooningly, a bit longer over photos of George Clooney than he normally would? Does this mean you get to dispense with logic altogether and claim that small penises somehow equal gayness (as opposed to, say, increased SUV sales) or that all gay men are "feminine" or that soy is the probable cause of obesity and leukemia and infertility and the downgrading of Pluto? Why not? It's the homophobic, science-is-for-sissies GOP way. Alas, there is no mention in Rutz's article about the other foods that have calamitous effects on one's sexual wiring. It is no secret, after all, that the consumption of excess Girl Scout cookies -- particularly Caramel deLites -- will make you a butch lesbian. It has also been reported in lesser-known scientific journals that eating lots of organic baby greens means you want to subscribe to the New Yorker and drive a Prius and get your genitals pierced, often at the same time. Finally, it is now widely known that hip, fusion cuisine has been proved to contain alarming amounts of multicultural ingredients, such as couscous and lemongrass and ghee, which obviously translate directly into anti-American hate and probably mean you are a radical Muslim, a Bollywood fan or both. I know what you're thinking: It's all too easy to make fun of mind-sets like Jimbo's. But it is also, of course, mandatory that we do so, if for no other reason than to laugh at such matters and point up the adorably warped mental gyrations required to make such claims. Because if you cannot, then you are not able to lay blame where it so obviously lies, which is, of course, smack on our education system. It's an intellectual crisis, is what it is. Stay in school, kids. Stay in school and please learn something lest you end up like Rutz, what with his trembling hands and his spasming colon and his violent nightmares featuring giant tofu robots leading perky armies of sashaying soy-fed children, marching into his yard wielding soy lattes and Barbra Streisand records and waving gay-marriage petitions like victory flags. Shudder. ?2007 San Francisco Chronicle Story Link

Science told: hands off gay sheep Isabel Oakeshott and Chris Gourlay Experiments that claim to ?cure? homosexual rams spark anger LINK SCIENTISTS are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of ?gay? sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans. The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes. It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the ?straightening? procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch. The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned. Navratilova defended the ?right? of sheep to be gay. She said: ?How can it be that in the year 2006 a major university would host such homophobic and cruel experiments?? She said gay men and lesbians would be ?deeply offended? by the social implications of the tests. But the researchers argue that the work is valid, shedding light on the ?broad question? of what determines sexual orientation. They insist the work is not aimed at ?curing? homosexuality. Approximately one ram in 10 prefers to mount other rams rather than mate with ewes, reducing its value to a farmer. Initially, the publicly funded project aimed to improve the productivity of herds. The scientists have been able to pinpoint the mechanisms influencing the desires of ?male-oriented? rams by studying their brains. The animals? skulls are cut open and electronic sensors are attached to their brains. By varying the hormone levels, mainly by injecting hormones into the brain, they have had ?considerable success? in altering the rams? sexuality, with some previously gay animals becoming attracted to ewes. Professor Charles Roselli, the Health and Science University biologist leading the research, defended the project. He said: ?In general, sexuality has been under-studied because of political concerns. People don?t want science looking into what determines sexuality. ?It?s a touchy issue. In fact, several studies have shown that people who believe homosexuality is biologically based are less homophobic than people who think that this orientation is acquired.? The research is being peer-reviewed by a panel of scientists in America, demonstrating that it is being taken seriously by the academic community. Potentially, the techniques could one day be adapted for human use, with doctors perhaps being able to offer parents pre-natal tests to determine the likely sexuality of offspring or a hormonal treatment to change the orientation of a child. Roselli has said he would be ?uncomfortable? about parents choosing sexuality, but argues that it is up to policy makers to legislate on questions of ethics. Michael Bailey, a neurology professor at Northwestern University near Chicago, said: ?Allowing parents to select their children?s sexual orientation would further a parent?s freedom to raise the sort of children they want to raise.? Critics fear the findings could be abused. Udo Schuklenk, Professor of Bioethics at Glasgow Caledonian University, who has written to the researchers pressing them to stop, said: ?I don?t believe the motives of the study are homophobic, but their work brings the terrible possibility of exploitation by homophobic societies. Imagine this technology in the hands of Iran, for example. ?It is typical of the US to ignore the global context in which this is taking place.? Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner, said: ?These experiments echo Nazi research in the early 1940s which aimed at eradicating homosexuality. They stink of eugenics. There is a danger that extreme homophobic regimes may try to use these experimental results to change the orientation of gay people.? He said that the techniques being developed in sheep could in future allow parents to ?play God?. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the pressure group, condemned the study as ?a needless slaughter of animals, an affront to human dignity and a colossal waste of precious research funds?. The tests on gay sheep are the latest in a long line of experiments seeking to alter the sexuality of humans and animals. G?nther Dorner, a scientist in the former East Berlin, carried out hormone-altering tests on rodents in the 1960s in the hope of finding a way to eradicate homosexuality. In 2002, Simon LeVay, an American neurologist, claimed to have discovered that homosexual and heterosexual men had physically different brains. His tests on the corpses of gay men who had died of Aids were widely criticised. Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Always consider the source. Worldnet Daily is An extreme right wing "news" site... The trouble with soy ? part 2 Story LINK Last week's column ("Soy is making kids 'gay'") got a lot of attention ? 500 e-mails and three dozen media interview requests ? because it blindsided the overwhelming majority of readers. Perhaps fewer than 10 percent of us are aware that soybeans are a hotly debated topic in medical circles today. Soy products ? eaten, drunk, and slipped into thousands of commercial products ? are rightly being blamed for a horrendous variety of medical conditions, several of them nearing epidemic status and a few of them irreversible. Pediatricians and other doctors are starting to see a growing parade of patients suffering from serious symptoms that were quite rare just a generation ago. The shocking statements in my column produced much incredulity, the more so because I did not footnote or go into detail. I simply did not have room to introduce all the biggest problems with soy and do it in a scientific, footnoted format. I will make an attempt to compensate for that shortcoming in this column and the next few. To keep within the length limit, I will tuck footnotes and excess text into one continuous hyperlink. You'll have to click on each "footnote" to see the column in full. Let's start here: The most common question of the past week has been, "If soy is so harmful as to potentially alter sexual physiology and behavior, why haven't the Chinese and Japanese all died off or become homosexual centuries ago?" Three interlocking reasons: Click here for the first two. The third is that Orientals simply do not eat as much soy as Westerners think. The average daily consumption in Japan (one of the highest soy-consuming countries in Asia) is at most about eight grams of soy protein. China and other countries eat far less. Soy has never been a leading staple there like rice, fish or pork. Even going back to the 1930s, calorie intake from soy in China was rarely more than 1.5 percent of their diet, whereas pork provided 65 percent! No comparison. Traditionally, soy plants were plowed under in fields as fertilizer. Soy was a poverty food, eaten heavily only by the poor in times of famine. (Grazing animals don't like to eat it, either.) People have always eaten soy in small portions as a condiment or a supplement with a meal. The highest intake of soy in Japan is among monks, who eat it to turn off sexual desire. (Think about that the next time you're in the grocery store.) By comparison, the FDA has encouraged Americans to eat 25 grams of soy protein a day as a way to prevent heart disease. This FDA health claim has doubled the consumption of soy protein in the U.S., yet was recently discredited when the American Heart Association changed its position on soy, now saying that soy does not lower cholesterol and does not prevent heart disease! You couldn't say that FDA opinions are for sale to the highest bidder, but they were influenced by a campaign and formal endorsement request by the soy industry, which includes giants like Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and DuPont. When the mud hit the fan during the investigation period, the FDA quickly modified its stance, limiting its endorsement to just basic soy protein instead of the isoflavone (estrogen-mimicking) ingredients in soy. The problem with that is soy protein contains those dangerous plant estrogens. This is why two of the FDA's most distinguished scientists, Drs. Daniel Sheehan and Daniel Doerge, protested the FDA health claim in a public letter. If you think you don't eat much soy, think again. Though only 15 percent of us eat a mostly-soy product once a week, 55-70 percent of all processed foods in supermarkets now have some soy in them. You can't escape it. Soybean oil accounts for a whopping 79 percent of the edible fats used annually in the U.S. Health-conscious people are likely to eat the most. Even a moderate vegetarian or soy fan would think nothing of tossing down eight ounces of tofu, a quarter cup of roasted soy nuts and a glass of soymilk daily, and that's far, far more than any normal Japanese individual would be likely to consume. But the worst victims of soy are babies. Per kilogram of body weight, the average Japanese in 2000 ate 0.47 milligrams of soy isoflavones daily, while the average U.S. baby drinking soy formula got 6.25 milligrams. Isoflavones are testosterone-suppressing female hormones. What is that doing to their sex organs and their sexual orientation? Tune in next week. The story gets worse, much worse. Copyright 1997-2006 WorldNetDaily.com Inc.

When religion loses its credibility By Oliver "Buzz" Thomas, USA TODAY What if Christian leaders are wrong about homosexuality? I suppose, much as a newspaper maintains its credibility by setting the record straight, church leaders would need to do the same: Correction: Despite what you might have read, heard or been taught throughout your churchgoing life, homosexuality is, in fact, determined at birth and is not to be condemned by God's followers. Based on a few recent headlines, we won't be seeing that admission anytime soon. Last week, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops took the position that homosexual attractions are "disordered" and that gays should live closeted lives of chastity. At the same time, North Carolina's Baptist State Convention was preparing to investigate churches that are too gay-friendly. Even the more liberal Presbyterian Church (USA) had been planning to put a minister on trial for conducting a marriage ceremony for two women before the charges were dismissed on a technicality. All this brings me back to the question: What if we're wrong? Religion's only real commodity, after all, is its moral authority. Lose that, and we lose our credibility. Lose credibility, and we might as well close up shop. It's happened to Christianity before, most famously when we dug in our heels over Galileo's challenge to the biblical view that the Earth, rather than the sun, was at the center of our solar system. You know the story. Galileo was persecuted for what turned out to be incontrovertibly true. For many, especially in the scientific community, Christianity never recovered. This time, Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice. To the contrary, whether sexual orientation arises as a result of the mother's hormones or the child's brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth. The point is this: Without choice, there can be no moral culpability. Answer in Scriptures So, why are so many church leaders (not to mention Orthodox Jewish and Muslim leaders) persisting in their view that homosexuality is wrong despite a growing stream of scientific evidence that is likely to become a torrent in the coming years? The answer is found in Leviticus 18. "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination." As a former "the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it" kind of guy, I am sympathetic with any Christian who accepts the Bible at face value. But here's the catch. Leviticus is filled with laws imposing the death penalty for everything from eating catfish to sassing your parents. If you accept one as the absolute, unequivocal word of God, you must accept them all. For many of gay America's loudest critics, the results are unthinkable. First, no more football. At least not without gloves. Handling a pig skin is an abomination. Second, no more Saturday games even if you can get a new ball. Violating the Sabbath is a capital offense according to Leviticus. For the over-40 crowd, approaching the altar of God with a defect in your sight is taboo, but you'll have plenty of company because those menstruating or with disabilities are also barred. The truth is that mainstream religion has moved beyond animal sacrifice, slavery and the host of primitive rituals described in Leviticus centuries ago. Selectively hanging onto these ancient proscriptions for gays and lesbians exclusively is unfair according to anybody's standard of ethics. We lawyers call it "selective enforcement," and in civil affairs it's illegal. A better reading of Scripture starts with the book of Genesis and the grand pronouncement about the world God created and all those who dwelled in it. "And, the Lord saw that it was good." If God created us and if everything he created is good, how can a gay person be guilty of being anything more than what God created him or her to be? Turning to the New Testament, the writings of the Apostle Paul at first lend credence to the notion that homosexuality is a sin, until you consider that Paul most likely is referring to the Roman practice of pederasty, a form of pedophilia common in the ancient world. Successful older men often took boys into their homes as concubines, lovers or sexual slaves. Today, such sexual exploitation of minors is no longer tolerated. The point is that the sort of long-term, committed, same-sex relationships that are being debated today are not addressed in the New Testament. It distorts the biblical witness to apply verses written in one historical context (i.e. sexual exploitation of children) to contemporary situations between two monogamous partners of the same sex. Sexual promiscuity is condemned by the Bible whether it's between gays or straights. Sexual fidelity is not. What would Jesus do? For those who have lingering doubts, dust off your Bibles and take a few hours to reacquaint yourself with the teachings of Jesus. You won't find a single reference to homosexuality. There are teachings on money, lust, revenge, divorce, fasting and a thousand other subjects, but there is nothing on homosexuality. Strange, don't you think, if being gay were such a moral threat? On the other hand, Jesus spent a lot of time talking about how we should treat others. First, he made clear it is not our role to judge. It is God's. ("Judge not lest you be judged." Matthew 7:1) And, second, he commanded us to love other people as we love ourselves. So, I ask you. Would you want to be discriminated against? Would you want to lose your job, housing or benefits because of something over which you had no control? Better yet, would you like it if society told you that you couldn't visit your lifelong partner in the hospital or file a claim on his behalf if he were murdered? The suffering that gay and lesbian people have endured at the hands of religion is incalculable, but they can look expectantly to the future for vindication. Scientific facts, after all, are a stubborn thing. Even our religious beliefs must finally yield to them as the church in its battle with Galileo ultimately realized. But for religion, the future might be ominous. Watching the growing conflict between medical science and religion over homosexuality is like watching a train wreck from a distance. You can see it coming for miles and sense the inevitable conclusion, but you're powerless to stop it. The more church leaders dig in their heels, the worse it's likely to be. Oliver "Buzz" Thomas is a Baptist minister and author of an upcoming book, 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs the Job). Copyright ? 2006 USA TODAY

Universal Music Sues MySpace.com By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer LINK LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Universal Music Group on Friday sued MySpace.com, claiming the online social-networking hub illegally encourages its users to share music and music videos on the site without permission. The recording company is seeking unspecified damages, including up to $150,000 for each unauthorized music video or song posted on the Web site. The lawsuit is the latest legal salvo in a wider conflict between established media against Internet companies whose technology is challenging the traditional ways music, video and other content are distributed and consumed. In its complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, Universal Music contends MySpace, a unit of News Corp., attempts to shield itself from liability by requiring users agree to grant the Web site a license to publish the content they upload to the site. Users, however, have no such authority over works they don't own. The Web site also "encourages, facilitates and participates in the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, distribution and public performance," according to the suit. Universal contends that much of the media posted by users of MySpace is not user-generated at all, but actually music and videos stolen from copyright owners. "MySpace is a willing partner in that theft," the lawsuit claims. MySpace issued a statement saying it is in full compliance with copyright laws and is confident it will prevail in court. "We have been keeping UMG closely apprised of our industry-leading efforts to protect creators' rights, and it's unfortunate they decided to file this unnecessary and meritless litigation," the statement read. "We provide users with tools to share their own work - we do not induce, encourage, or condone copyright violation in any way." In the complaint, Universal singles out features on the Web site that enable users to save copies of videos to their profile pages or share them with others on the site. Universal Music also claims the MySpace Video and MySpace Music services also enable users to access copyright material without permission. Universal Music, a unit of Paris-based Vivendi SA and the world's largest recording company, is home to recording artists such as U2, The Killers and Kanye West. "Our music and videos play a key role in building the communities that have created hundreds of millions of dollars of value for the owners of MySpace," the company said in a statement. "Our goal is not to inhibit the creation of these communities, but to ensure that our rights and those of our artists are recognized." Earlier Friday, MySpace said it was testing technology aimed at enabling content owners to flag videos on the site that they find contain unauthorized copyrighted material. The flagged content is then removed by MySpace. The company expects to roll out the feature in a few weeks. Currently, MySpace takes down content from its users' pages when it receives a notice from a copyright holder. Last month, MySpace began using "audio fingerprinting" technology to block users from uploading copyrighted music to the site. That technology works by checking audio files against a music database from Gracenote Inc. Those steps, however, failed to sway Universal Music. Efforts between the two companies to forge a licensing deal failed this week. In a speech in September, Universal Music CEO Doug Morris accused MySpace of violating copyright laws. The executive also charged video-sharing site YouTube.com of doing the same. The record company and YouTube Inc. have since reached a licensing deal. Last month, Universal Music filed separate copyright infringement lawsuits against online video-sharing sites run by Grouper Networks Inc. and Bolt Inc. ? 2006 The Associated Press

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Baltimore man wins gravesite battle Parents wanted gay son?s body moved to family plot JOSHUA LYNSEN, Washington Blade A gay Baltimore man has won a courtroom battle to keep his late partner buried in the Tennessee grave the two men chose. ?This is awesome,? Olive said. ?It may not be over if they appeal, but I feel so good.? Baltimore City Orphans? Court Judge Karen Friedman ruled against Lowell and Carolyn Groff, who sought to overturn their son?s will and move his body to a family cemetery. Groff?s parents argued in court Sept. 25 and 26 that their 26-year-old son didn?t know what he was doing when he completed his will and burial instructions shortly before his death on Nov. 23, 2004. Groff, who was HIV-positive, died from a staph infection that spread throughout his body. Olive said Groff was estranged from his parents at the time of his death, and completed a will and burial instructions in anticipation of the legal battle. Friedman?s ruling, Olive said, affirmed that ?for all practical purposes, we were a married couple, and that everything seemed normal for a dying man to be doing for a married couple.? Olive said he was thrilled Friedman acknowledged that he and Groff ?considered ourselves spouses, and in her eyes we were.? Olive, who married Groff according to local Quaker tradition in 2003, said his battle illuminates the need for equal marriage rights for gay couples. ?I won, but I wouldn?t have had to go through this at all if the state had some sort of provision that allowed my partner and I to have legalized our relationship in some sense,? he said. ?This is kind of bittersweet because I had to go through a lot of shit to get this.? ? 2006 | A Window Media LLC Publication