Kizo and Silk the Cats, BO33, and Rick Warren

Well, my won- der- ful rescue cat, Kizo, is leaving for his very nice new digs this Saturday. And just in time to live in air conditioning, no less. A nice thing when temps--like today--are (sigh) almost 100 degrees F.

Kizo's new mom is very excited, and so are we!

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Silk the Cat is so much better! Thank you all for your prayers for her (please don't stop!). The specialists still cannot figure out why her BUN levels are high... they still believe she is bleeding internally somewhere perhaps a small stomach or intestinal lesion or ulcer. We are hoping to have her scoped when the specialist hits my vet next.

She is getting stronger and looks SO much better... has the run of the vet office pretty much... but we just cannot seem to get her well. The vet is trying some new medication and we are hoping this might help.

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Bumped into an explanation of the BO33 issue with some elementary explanations about resolutions at convention and the basic making of sausage in the church which I found extremely helpful. Perhaps you will too.

Read here.

There are eight separate resolutions pertaining to the "issue" of B033, none of them specifically revoking B033, but all of them supplanting it one way or another (which is how it often works, I learned). There are links to each resolution on the issue.

An excellent read.

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Since I went off on a toot yesterday about Bul, today it's back to Rick Warren who, as you know, spent a lot of time supporting Prop 8 and in general defaming lgbt folks and who also has an interest in Uganda/AIDS, including non-distribution of condoms, and who lobbied heavily against an update to PEPFAR to strike funding for abstinence-only programs. The bill failed, Warren succeeded and Uganda's AIDS infections rose dramatically.

Read about Warren in Uganda, here. This is a January 2009 piece, but warrants reading if you have not, already... even re-reading because of the cast of characters you will find below.

Interestingly, the Bush Administration lackey that supported abstinence-only programs--Randall Tobias, AIDS Czar-- was eventually found to be using the services of the D.C. Madam. Oops. Like Craig's wide stance, Tobias admitted he had only gotten massages. Read here.

Massages. Uh huh.

Tobias shared a stage with Warren as PEPFAR Czar.

Kay Warren has a vision of STOPPING aids. Her approach is that the ONLY way to really accomplish this is through abstinence, though she does not view condoms as an evil (or so she says), she just, personally, doesn't prescribe to the notion that this is any kind of solution. Uganda Rev. Ssempa (note that he and the Warrens are also friends and Ssempa has appeared several times at Warren's church) also has testified at the behest of the government of Uganda before the US Congress.

So, the next stop is Human Rights Watch (HRW) and their 2007 letter to Congress on the issue where they more or less tie all of this into a big bundle, though without direct mention to Warren. Read it here. It is well foot-noted, BTW.

One of the most important things to carry away from the HRW letter is that your taxes and mine are supporting not only religious people, such as Warren who has spoken extremely harshly IN Uganda about lgbt people, government agencies in Uganda that are killing, harassing, and/or jailing lgbt Ugandans. In the case of religious organizations funded through PEPFAR, both US and not, they are free to promote terrible legal penalties to be visited on the lgbt people of Uganda, but lgbt people are NOT free to speak for themselves. Rather a terrible irony. In fact, Ssempa has asked that the media refrain from ANY debate or discussion on the matter.

Nothing like a free press, right?

So, the bottom line here is that we are supporting human rights violations not only with our taxes, but through our Communion. I cannot speak for you, but as for me... that is just never going to be acceptable.

As an aside, now it turns out that Mark Carver who is an apparent employee of Warren's PEACE program is editing the Wiki discussion on Warren and it has created quite the war!

You can read about it at Lavender Newswire, here.