Sounds like a line from jokes we used to tell in primary school doesn’t it?
First of all the bad news. Some months ago, my website was attacked. But it was a strange attack. Coaching requests and purchases of my book were not being processed for nearly three months. I thought things had just gone quiet. I got my webmaster Tim Daly to look at into what was happening. He discovered that someone had placed files on the site that would not be seen by visitors but could be picked up possibly by police detectives searching for inappropriate content on the internet.
The flies included words such as child pornography and kiddie porn amongst other things (which would be inappropriate to mention).
This raises two questions.
Who would do such a thing?
Why would they want to link me to that kind of activity?
To answer the first question. A very sick person who has probably been fuelled by the rhetoric of a small minority group of Christian right wing extremists. I won’t name the group as the less they are talked about the better. They have already launched several email campaigns against to try and stop the work I’m doing and discredit my name. A reader of my autobiography forwarded me an email newsletter this group sent out only yesterday, which shows the type of hysteria they try to create by accusation and misinformation.
Quote: “Homomsexuality is a morally deviant, addictive, compulsive, lifestyle - it is unnatural and harmful to those individuals who surrender to it and it will undermine those communities that normalise it and give 'rights' to those people who engage in such activity.”
Those kinds of statements makes one wonder what psychological disorder the person has that makes them so obsessed with the subject. I think those comments would have to be bordering on vilification, which is illegal in most states as far as I’m aware.
Now the second question. WHY? I’m sure you know why. To try and associate me with the kind of activity placed on my site opens the opportunity for me to be investigated by the police which would immediately discredit my name. As the saying goes “even is a person is innocent some mud sticks”.
Now the GOOD NEWS.
Ray Martin interviewed me last Friday for a 60 Minutes segment. The show was going to be on in a months time but I’ve heard it has been bumped forward so it could be on in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know. The producers of 60 Minutes have also asked me to be on the ninemsn website after the show to chat and answer questions. 60 Minutes is Australia’s highest rating, and longest running current affairs program with a viewing audience nationally and internationally that runs into the millions.
Other News: Tammy Faye Passes Away
Some of you will know of Tammy Faye the wife of Jimmy Bakker (the famous televangelist mentioned in “A Life of Unlearning”), who was embroiled in scandal in 1987. Jimmy served 5 years of a 45 year prison sentence for fraud, tax evasion, and racketeering. Afterwards he then wrote a book called “I Was Wrong”.
What a lot of people don’t know, however, was that it was many people in the gay community who supported Tammy through the ordeal.
"When my husband was in prison and I wasn't getting any presents for Christmas, it was the gay community that gathered around me and saw that. They gave me beautiful bathrobes with my initials on it; they gave beautiful leopard hangers and leopard shoe bags. And I had the most awesome Christmas I've ever had. They'd write to me, and I'd write back to them….. They cared about me more than the Christians cared about me, and that says something to me right there."t Tammy Faye Bakker Messner to the Advocate, July 18.
Also Tammy and Jimmy Bakker’s son Jay now pastors a Pentecostal Church in New York that is welcoming of gay and lesbians.
"I think they (Homosexuals) deserve equal rights just as much as anybody else does. And I think it's… it's such a big social issue right now, it's something that really needs to be looked at and I think passed." - Jay Bakker (Larry King, December 15, 2006)
SEE CHANGE CAN HAPPEN. NEVER GIVE UP.
See the interview with Jay Bakker and his Mum on Larry King live the day before she died on Youtube.Labels: media release, reparative therapy